ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: The Gilgit-Baltistan National Alliance (GBNA), an umbrella of 14 national and local political parties, has demanded of the government to include Northern Areas in any negotiations on settlement of Kashmir issue.

The president of the alliance, Inayatullah Shumali, and general-secretary, Qurban Ali, while talking to mediamen here on Sunday, said the people of Northern Areas had remained silent in the interest of country’s integrity, whereas the area had been deprived of its constitutional and democratic rights for the last over 50 years.

They demanded of the government to give the areas a state status on the pattern of Azad Jammu and Kashmir or amalgamate it with AJK and give proportionate representation in the AJK Legislative Council.

They rejected the present system in which bureaucracy had turned these areas into grazing fields for the past 54 years. We prefer a separate setup similar to that of Azad Kashmir to rid our people of bureaucracy and ministry of Kashmir affairs control.

Maj (Rtd) Hussain Shah of Qaumi Party, Advocate Mohammad Iqbal of Karakuram National Movement, Advocate Mushtaq of JI and Nawaz Khan Naji of Baloristan National Front were also present.

Mr Shumali said the government had failed to implement the ruling of the Supreme Court as the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) members, specially the deputy chief executive, in the present system, had no powers.

The GBNA leaders alleged that the bureaucracy was treating people of NAs as second-rated citizens and when they raised voice for their rights they were termed as traitors.

They said it was unfortunate that the Northern Areas was neither given independent status nor included in the AJK. They threatened to launch a campaign to regain the usurped rights of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.