Waziristan Deal

On Thursday, the members of a magnificent inter-tribal Jirga left for Miranshah to help resuscitate a peace agreement with militants in NWFP .

Members of Jirga, who were instrumental in brokering the deal between the government and the militants, were flown to Miranshah by helicopters after a meeting with Governor of NWFP Mr. Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai.

An official statement has said the Jirga members would visit Miranshah to review the state of affairs arising out of the unilateral declaration on the part of tribesman to scrap the peace deal which was inked on September, 05 2006 absolutely.

The governor Aurakzai, who was the architect of the agreement, told the Jirga members that it were the militants who had violated the deal by failing to evict foreign militants, continuing to cross the border, albeit through Kurram Agency, and carrying out attacks on security forces.

He mentioned the suicide bombing in Gurbaz on July, 04 in which 10 people, six of them soldiers, were killed.

The Governor of NWFP Mr. Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai was quoted that:

“They (militants)” stopped up crossing the border in North Waziristan but then crossed over through the Kurram region and troops had been deployed at checkpoints after the militants failed to help restore order and cases of kidnapping and car snatching increased.

“The Jirga had not been given any specific mandate. It had been sent to do “some sounding and talking”. But he acknowledged that there was little that the government could offer at the time,” the official said:

Aurakzai said the agreement had helped restore normal life to the troubled region.

“It is expected that there might have been certain violations of the terms of the agreement from both sides. However, a monitoring committee was prepared to take corrective measures all along,” the statement quoted Mr. Aurakzai as having said. He also criticized the monitoring committee including the local political authorities for their sluggish attitude which resulted in a spate of attacks on law-enforcement agencies by militants. Aurakzai urged the Jirga members to address the situation in a careful manner, tighten the loose dent ends and do some fine-tuning so that the peace accord remained intact, “as it was in the interest of the Pakistan and the people of Waziristan in particular.