October 18, 2003	Saturday	Sha'aban 21, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 17: MMA’s parliamentary leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed has said that the alliance does not want to enter into a direct confrontation with the armed forces which is why it has so far avoided giving a deadline for reaching an agreement with the government on the LFO and the president’s uniform.

However, he made it clear that any agreement which “does not make a clear mention of the date on which the president would give up his uniform” would not be acceptable to the religious parties’ alliance.

He also made it explicit that the MMA will not participate in any meeting of the party heads if called by the prime minister without first concluding an agreement on the proposed constitutional amendment package.

He, however, warned that while the MMA would try its best not to take on the armed forces, “no one would be able to put out the fire” once the genie was out of the bottle.

Talking to reporters at the National Assembly cafeteria on Friday, Qazi said the MMA was trying to save the country from slipping into a political chaos by seeking a negotiated settlement of the contentious issues, otherwise the people were “ready to come onto the streets in millions on a single call.”

He said the alliance had succeeded in galvanizing unprecedented unity among the Shia and Sunni groups, and predicted that the day was not far off when the alliance would amalgamate into a single political party.

When asked as to how the MMA will react if the government continued to drag its feet on the proposed amendment package, Qazi said the government “cannot afford to delay a decision on this,” as, according to him, “Gen Musharraf was under tremendous international pressure to transfer effective powers to the elected parliament.”

Replying to a question about the military operation in Fata, he said the MMA will consult other opposition parties and the tribal MPs on this question, and chalk out a comprehensive plan for defying the ban imposed on the entry of lawmakers into the tribal areas.

He said a formal announcement of the MMA about Fata will be made on Tuesday next after the opposition parliamentary parties’ meetings.

Replying to questions with regard to the MMA government in the NWFP, he said it was a popular government which was quite different from the other three provincial governments in the way it looked after its people.

He dismissed as absurd the speculation that the federal government was about to slap governor’s rule in the province, saying the MMA had a clear majority in the province and no amount of pressure could dislodge it.