KARACHI: PPP urges political resolution of conflict
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Oct 14: The Pakistan People’s Party has called upon the international coalition to keep the operation as short as possible, target terrorist facilities and camps only and prevent the loss of life of innocent Afghans.
In a resolution adopted at the party’s central executive committee meeting, held under the chairmanship of the senior vice chairman of the party, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, here in Bilawal House on Sunday, the party also urged the world community to move towards a political settlement which included formation of a broadbased government expressive of the will of the Afghan people, not hostile to its neighbours, keeping the ethnic complexion of Afghanistan in mind.
Through the resolution the meeting demanded of the Pakistan government to make the party chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, a part of the national dialogue.
The meeting noted that in this hour of grave national crisis the nation needed a consensus and required a political dialogue to achieve this objective and mass mobilization, which was attainable through leadership that inspired confidence in the masses.
Through another resolution, the meeting observed that continuing denial of the democratic process had lend strength to extremists and fundamentalists, and demanded that free, fair, and transparent elections be held immediately and power be transferred to the elected representatives of the people.
In the existing international climate, the meeting said the party emphasized the need to distinguish between “acts of terror” and the legitimate struggles of the oppressed people of the world.
“Dissociate Islam, a religion of peace, enlightenment and tolerance, from terrorism. To reason that the perpetrators of the acts of terror belong to a particular religion, hence it be so classified; if that reasoning be applied in Bosnia, Palestine, Kashmir, Vietnam or other such situations the inference will have disastrous effects on civilization,” the meeting observed.
The meeting said it believed that, in juxtaposition, the causes that gave rise to fascination with extreme positions and allowed terrorists to use them for their own political agendas needed to be addressed simultaneously, namely, alleviation of poverty, biased attitudes towards just Muslim causes and non- implementation of UN resolutions protecting the rights of the peoples of occupied territories.
