President Arif Alvi’s hint that the government may consider extending a general amnesty to those members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban who have never been involved in attacks against its forces and lay down their weapons reminds one of previous peace deals and verbal commitments with the TTP that successive governments made after 2004. All these peace deals failed for various reasons.

In the wake of increasing attacks on Pakistani security forces by the TTP, President Alvi’s statement is being interpreted as a tacit offer. However, the TTP has not commented on the statement.

The history of peace deals with various factions of the TTP indicates that the deals made the TTP stronger. After the deals, the TTP managed to expand its area of influence. As a result, the governments were forced to launch military operations to stop them. After none of these deals was the government able to enforce its conditions. The deals helped only to bring the TTP leaders in the limelight. The TTP neither disarmed its operatives, nor handed over foreign fighters. They also did not voluntarily vacate any area they had occupied.

The timeline starts with the Shakai Agreement, signed in April 2004 between Nek Muhammad Wazir and the government. Nek Muhammad provided shelter to Uzbek, Chechen, Arab and some African militants in South Waziristan, fighting for Al Qaeda against Pakistan and allied forces in Afghanistan. The government asked the TTP to hand them over to the security forces. After Nek Muhammad’s refusal to do so, the government launched a military intervention in March 2004. However, the military operation did not achieve its targets. The government then offered peace talks to Nek Muhammad. In April 2004, the government struck a written deal with Nek Muhammad in Shakai. The government accepted Nek Muhammad’s demands for releasing the captured Taliban and paying compensation to the local tribesmen who had suffered damage to property during the military operation. In return, Nek Muhammad assured the government that the foreign militants would be registered with the government and would neither attack Pakistani forces nor cross into Afghanistan to fight there. However, Pakistani forces were attacked again in the area several tribal elders, who had played an important role in making the peace deal possible, were assassinated. The government abrogated the deal and launched another military operation in June 2004. The same month, he was killed in a drone attack. Most of his operatives then joined the Mullah Nazir group.

The history of peace deals with various factions of the TTP indicates that these made the TTP stronger each time. After the deals, the TTP managed to expand its area of influence. The governments were then forced to launch military operations to stop them.

The second major deal was called Srarogha Peace Agreement. It was inked in February 2005 with Baitullah Mehsud of the Pakistani Taliban in Srarogha, a town in South Waziristan Agency. The government sought this agreement after noticing that attacks against security forces from Mehsud areas of South Waziristan were increasing. The Srarogha agreement had essentially the same conditions as the Shakai Agreement with Nek Muhammad including compensation to the militants for their property, razed or damaged during military operations. The government agreed that Baitullah Mehsud or his operatives would not be targetted by the security forces. In return, the government wanted the outfit not to attack Pakistani targets and stop sheltering foreign fighters. Clashes between the security forces and Baitullah group increased after the agreement and Pakistan saw a spillover of terrorist attacks and militancy across Pakistan in the months that followed.

Baitullah Mehsud was eventually killed in a US drone strike in August 2009 and Hakimullah Mehsud took over his position and wreaked havoc in Pakistan.

The third such deal was known as the Swat Agreement. Mullah Fazlullah had established a madrasa in 2001. Later, he set up an FM radio station to broadcast his radical sermons. In the following years, his group TTP (Fazlullah) started enforcing his extremist agenda in the area. This led to violence and occupation.

In 2008, the government offered peace talks to the Taliban in Swat. After extended peace negotiations, the group and the KP government reached a 16-points deal, signed on May 21. Once again, the Taliban refused to disarm as stipulated in the agreement and demanded withdrawal of troops from Swat. In less than a month, they launched a fresh wave of attacks on government officials, installations, markets and schools. The agreement proved counterproductive as the Taliban stretched their flanks into Buner and Shangla. The government then launched the military operation called Rah-i-Haq that uprooted the movement from Swat and the adjacent areas. Fazlullah escaped to Afghanistan where he was killed in a drone attack a couple of years ago.

Other than these written deals, the state struck undocumented deals with Mullah Nazir, a TTP leader from the Wazir tribe in South Waziristan in 2008. He died in a drone attack in 2013.

In June 2008, during the Operation Sirat-i-Mustaqeem in Khyber Agency against Lashkar-i-Islam of Mangal Bagh (who died in a drone attack in Afghanistan recently), the government reached an agreement on the same pattern. The group immediately took advantage of the truce.

In North Waziristan, the administration reached a verbal agreement with Hafiz Gul Bahadar, involved in attacks into Afghanistan.

Likewise, the government launched another military operation, Operation Sherdil, in Bajaur Agency to against Maulvi Faqir Muhammad (recently released after Pul Charkhi jail break in Afghanistan) and his group. During the operation, the government held peace talks with him in August 2008. However, peace could not be sustained.

The writer is a senior journalist, teacher of journalism, writer and analyst. He tweets at @BukhariMubasher