November 30, 2003	Sunday	Shawwal 5, 1424

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QUETTA, Nov 29: Pukthunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Saturday urged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to quit and send the army to the barracks to strengthen the political system and allow parliament to function independently so that it could steer the country out of the constitutional crisis.

Speaking at a public meeting on eve of the death anniversary of the party’s founder, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, at the football ground in Pishin, he accused the military rulers of depriving the citizens of their democratic rights.

He said the PMAP would not compromise on the issue of the Legal Framework Order as no individual or institution had the right to make changes in the Constitution. He said only a two-thirds majority in parliament could amend the laws of the country.

He said insistence by the rulers on the constitutional amendments announced by the president would plunge the country in a constitutional crisis and make parliament subservient to the wishes of army generals.

He said the PMAP and other parties would continue the struggle for the revival of the Constitution and restoration of democratic rule and supremacy of parliament.

He said autocratic rulers and military dictators had denied the Pukhtuns the constitutional and political rights.

He said the PMAP’s main objective was to unite the Pukhtun areas in an administrative unit that should be called Pukthunkhwa or Pashtoonistan. He said the land inhabited by the Pukhtuns was rich in natural resources but the usurpers had deprived them of the resources.

He called upon Pukhtun ulema to raise voice for the protection of their motherland’s resources.

He criticized the arrests of Afghan refugees and their deportation and alleged that they had refused to go to Afghanistan to destabilize the Karzai government.

He said if the United States and other forces had not supported extremist religious parties against the progressive regime in Kabul, the Afghans would not had suffered so much.

He said the US administration was punishing those groups that it had backed in the past.

He said his party fully supported the reconstruction process in Afghanistan and expressed the hope that the Kabul government would run the country’s affairs in accordance with the Bonn agreement.