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| 27 February 2004 | Friday | 06 Muharram 1425 |
Govt ready to remove doubts of nationalist leaders: PM
QUETTA, Feb 26: Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has said he is ready to initiate talks with Balochistan's veteran nationalist leaders to remove their apprehensions and reservations about development issues including oil and gas exploration in the province.
"I am ready for talks with nationalist leaders, but consent of the other side is also necessary in this regard," Mr Jamali said while talking to a Quetta-based group of journalists that called on him in the Prime Minister House on Wednesday night.
"The veteran nationalist leaders are my elders and I have a lot of respect for them," he said, adding that they should also come forward as negotiations cannot be initiated one-sided. If they wanted to develop Balochistan, they must come forward and extend their full cooperation and help uplift the province, he said.
He said talks was the only way to resolve all issues and if they had reservations and apprehensions about the construction of Gwadar port, launching oil and gas exploration work in the province, they should come to the negotiation table and he would make all possible efforts to satisfy them.
In replying to a question about the demand of the PONM for a new constitution, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali said there was no need of a new constitution as the existing one was protecting the rights of the people and providing provincial autonomy of all the federating units.
The government, he vowed, would transfer all powers to the provinces given in the 1973 Constitution. However, the premier said his government did not prepare the 1973 Constitution and those who were seeking the new constitution had signed it. They had also taken part in all elections held in the country under this Constitution and now they wanted the new constitution.
"These leaders should first compare the performance of the present government with those of previous rulers and then talk about the new constitution," the prime minister said.
He strongly reacted over the statements of Ms Benazir Bhutto on the nuclear issue and said she was violating the oath under which she was elected prime minister of this country twice. "All her statements are against the interests of Pakistan and against the official secret act," he said and remarked that issuing such statements while sitting abroad was very easy.
Mr Jamali said his government had not put any ban on the return of Ms Bhutto and Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif and added that they were free to come back, but had to face cases pending in courts. Those cases were not filed by his government, he said.
He said Ms Benazir went abroad during the Nawaz government while Nawaz Sharif went out of the country after signing a deal with the Musharraf government. "If they consider their polices were in favour of the country, they should come back and face the legal proceedings," he said.
Referring to the politics of nationalist parties and their leaders, Prime Minister Jamali advised them to indulge in country-friendly politics and refrain from misguiding the people. The present government, he said, did not believe in discrimination with any province.
The prime minister said that recently a group of MPAs and senators of nationalist parties of Balochistan had held a meeting with him in which he (Jamali) offered them that the federal government would provide training facility to 53 engineers of Gwadar to prepare them for handling the port in future. But so far not a single name was provided to him by these parties, he said.
He announced that the people of Gwadar would be given free-of-cost land in the coastal area and the government would provide alternate houses to those whose accommodation would be demolished for acquiring land in connection with the port construction. He said maximum jobs would be provided to the local people in all the important projects and industries of Balochistan.
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