17 July 2004	Saturday	28 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

LAHORE, July 16: Jamaat-i-Islami Secretary-General Syed Munawwar Hasan says peace in Karachi and Sindh will be possible only if the MQM-led provincial government and governor are sacked.

In a statement here on Friday, he said the JI was not a regional or ethnic organization which could be banned. Those who had wanted to ban the Jamaat in the past had become history and the ones trying to push it to the wall now would soon meet their fate, he predicted.

The JI leader said this in response to a Sindh chief minister's statement that the Jamaat could be banned because of its activities. Mr Hasan criticized the government for according a warm welcome to US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage despite his statement in India that Pakistan was still involved in cross border terrorism.

The US official, he regretted, had overlooked the atrocities being committed by 700,000 Indian troops in occupied Kashmir. Referring to interim Iraqi prime minister's appeal that Pakistan send its troops to his country, the JI leader said the rulers would be making a mistake by granting the request by what he called a CIA employee.

He said Iraq was under US occupation and the Pakistani troops would be working against their faith by playing a role to strengthen the occupation. It had established that Iraq had been invaded on the basis of false reports.

The JI leader took exception to statements issued by some Afghan ministers on Wana operation. He said the Karzai government was an ally of the United States and its rule was confined to Kabul. Thus, he said, it did not represent the Afghan people.