November 27, 2001	Tuesday	Ramazan 11, 1422

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LAHORE, Nov 26: Pakistan Awami Tehrik chief Dr Tahirul Qadri has termed the Afghan situation ‘very critical’ and urged the Northern Alliance to exercise restraint so as to prevent the country from plunging into another round of civil war.

While speaking at the party’s central executive council, Qadri said Afghanistan had the potential of triggering such a catastrophic situation.

He expressed the hope that the Bonn conference would brighten the chances of durable peace in the war-torn country. The people of Afghanistan, he said, had never accepted any government thrusted upon them and as such the only option left was the establishment of a broad-based government.

He termed Burhanuddin Rabbani’s indication of including moderate Taliban in the new setup a good omen, and said it would strengthen peace efforts in the region.

The PAT chief said India could never prove to be a friend of Pakistan. He said Ms Benazir’s visit to India amounted to humiliation of Pakistani people.

He said India never accepted Pakistan from the core of its heart and had been trying its level best to get it declared a terrorist state.

MP LEADER: Millat Party’s national executive committee member Pervaiz Saleh said on Monday atrocious massacre of prisoners of war in Mazar-i-Sharif showed Americans to be defeating their own avowed objectives and commitments.

In a statement here on Monday, the MP leader said the world conscience was bound to rise against such an atrocious behaviour. He said they were indeed messing up the ‘war against terrorism’.

He said terrorism and ruthless bloodshed of hundreds of foreigners, including Pakistanis, Chechens and Arabs, could not be accepted as a justifiable and honourable answer for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon.

The US government, he said, was forewarned by world opinion about the threat to human lives and the designs of the vested interests to disregard and dishonour all norms of humanity and dignity. He said now when the siege of Kandhar had begun, a precaution was required not to repeat similar ruthless blood baths.

Mr Saleh said if such atrocious crimes were not stopped and strict, immediate and judicious cognizance taken by the UN, it would become difficult for the world conscious, comity of nations specially the Muslim states to stomach all this and still afford to remain with the international coalition.