TTP put on UN terror list

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Friday put the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on its international anti-terrorism sanctions list.

The 15-nation council also put a radical Chechen group, Emarat Kavkaz, led by Russia's most wanted man Doku Umarov on its sanctions list.

The adding of the TTP group to the sanctions list comes as the Security Council eases pressure on the Afghan Taliban in a bid to encourage it to join peace moves in Afghanistan.

TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud has been on the UN sanctions list since last October because of his links to al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

Britain's UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the addition of the TTP to the UN terrorism list "sends a powerful signal of the international community's solidarity and resolve in the fight against the TTP and international terrorism."

The UN Security Council decided last month to take the Afghan Taliban off the al Qaeda sanctions list to differentiate the two and encourage Afghan reconciliation efforts.

"We have made a conscious choice not to seek the wholesale listing of the Afghan Taliban at this time. This is because we want to support the Afghan reconciliation process," Lyall Grant said. (AFP)