PESHAWAR, Aug 8: The Awami National Party (ANP) has urged the world community not to forget the sacrifices the people of the NWFP and Balochistan made during the 22-year-long Afghan conflict.

Apart from rehabilitating Afghanistan, the world community should extend financial assistance to the two provinces to improve their infrastructure, said ANP Information Secretary Haji Adeel during a meeting with Methew Gold, Islamabad-based political secretary of the British High Commission, here on Wednesday.

He told Mr Gold that the infrastructure in the two provinces, trade and agriculture had been badly affected due to the presence of a large number of Afghan refugees for well over 20 years.

Mr Aqeel said: “Now that the world community is busy rehabilitating Afghanistan, NWFP and Balochistan also deserve to be extended financial assistance to offset the damage done to their infrastructure.”

He expressed concern over the silence of the donor countries over the issue, saying that although the international community was sponsoring the reconstruction of Afghanistan, no attention was being paid to the NWFP and Balochistan.  

He remarked that the Taliban and Al Qaeda network had penetrated into Afghanistan after the Western countries had withdrawn from the war-torn country on the completion of their objective following the disintegration of the former Soviet Union.

“The world community is repeating the mistake as they have ignored NWFP and Balochistan, which suffered at the hands of Afghan refugees during the last 24 years,” he added.