PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- The Pakistani Taliban, rejecting peace talks with the government, said it will keep fighting until Pakistan's "secular rulers" are ousted, a spokesman said.
Responding to a government amnesty offer, Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, said his group will not end its fight until "the ouster of secular rulers imposed by foreign forces to rule an Islamic country," Dawn newspaper reported
Earlier, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a news conference said the government would remove all groups including the TTP from its list of banned organizations in exchange for their cooperation with the government and renouncing terrorism, Dawn reported.
Ehsan said TTP wants the creation of "an independent state governed by Islamic Sharia law, upon which the foundations of Pakistan were laid," Dawn reported, adding he accused Malik of being "a foreign agent not worthy of granting forgiveness to the Taliban."
In its latest acts of violence, the TTP has been accused of deadly bombings against the minority Shiite Muslims during their Muharram religious processions.
