Thursday, April 2, 2009

Pakistan must stop Afghan interference: NWFP Minister


PESHAWAR: Information Minister for NWFP Iftikhar Hussain said on Thursday that 95 per cent of Pakistan’s problems could be resolved if the country ‘stopped interfering in Afghan affairs’ and that Talibanisation is a ‘foreign-funded agenda supported by Pakistani agencies which has facilitated blood bath across Pakistan.Its strange that we put others in trouble and think all will be well here, if we kill them its Jihad, if we destroy their schools its Jihad, if we destroy their country it is termed jihad and if all this bounces on us than we wonder why it happened.Speaking at a seminar on Internally Displaced People from the conflict areas of Swat and FATA, Ifitkhar said that Pakistan faces a grave situation and concrete efforts have to be taken to stop a looming war.‘If we would not have given guns in the hands of seminary students on the behest of the foreign powers we would not have been facing the bloodbath in the tribal areas and Swat,’ he said.The minister said that there was no government writ in Swat before talks through TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad who has reigned in hardcore militants but peace has yet to be restored in ‘60 per cent of the valley.’‘Despite resistance from the US, we held talks with the militants through Sufi Muhammad and its working effectively,’ the minister said.Iftikhar claimed that the federal government and the army fully support the peace process in Swat and soon Nizam-i-Adl regulations will be implemented in Malakand.He said that all-out efforts are being made to defuse tension in the tribal areas.

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