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Peshawar: Pakistanis increasingly see talks with Islamist militants as the only way to end a rising tide of violence, but it's far from certain the militants want to listen.
More than 500 people have been killed in violence since the beginning of this year, raising fears about stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan and presenting a new government being formed after elections last month with a daunting problem.
"The only way is to have a dialogue," said a government official involved with policy in ethnic Pashtun tribal areas on the Afghan border, where militants fighting against both the Pakistani and Afghan governments are based.
Under pressure from the United States and other countries battling the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan has sent about 100,000 troops to tribal lands on the border but the attacks have only intensified.
Militants have struck in all major Pakistani cities over the past year and they assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as she left an election rally on December 27.
"We have used force for quite some time and have not been able to achieve anything," said the government official, who declined to be identified. "Any amount of force you bring in is only going to get sucked in."
The opposition parties that won last month's parliamentary elections and are now forming federal and provincial governments have also said they want to push talks, although it is the military that calls the shots in the war on terror.
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