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Pakistan tribesmen decline to attend jirga

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, Aug 8, IRNA
Pakistan-Jirga
Parliamentarians and tribal elders from Pakistan's troubled Waziristan region Wednesday insisted that they can not attend the jirga or council in Kabul when their own house is burning.

The three-day Pak-Afghan jirga will begin on Thursday.

"Our own house is burning, how we can talk about peace in another country."

The Joint peace jirga is meaningless without maintaining peace in Waziristan," Member of National Assembly from North Waziristan Maulana Nek Zaman said.

Nek Zaman told IRNA in Islamabad tribal elders and religious scholars have time and again urged the government to settle the problems through negotiations and jirgas instead of using force but the government did not accept the request.

"It is tradition of tribesmen that we do not accept decisions on gunpoint," he said while referring to military operation in Waziristan region.

Scores of security men and suspected militants have been killed in Waziristan in suicide and bomb attacks as well as military operation.

Violence increased after local Taliban scrapped a 10-month peace deal with the government last month and the security forces stormed the Islamabad's Lal Masjid or red mosque.

Nek Zaman said that parties in any jirga are known but no one knows who are parties to the Kabul jirga.

"We do not know wither it is between NATO forces and Afghan people or President Musharraf and Hamid Karzai," he added.

To a question Maulana Nek Zaman called for the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, saying foreign forces should leave in to Afghan people to decide their fate.

When asked who is responsible for recent violence and failure of peace pact in the North Waziristan he said the government had committed in the deal to withdraw troops from check posts but the troops were again deployed in violation of the agreement.

He said, on one side, the government is holding jirga in Afghanistan for peace but is using force in Waziristan, which will further complicate the situation.

2020/235/1416