PESHAWAR, Aug 5: Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain has met a tribal militant in South Waziristan in a bid to defuse the situation following hostile statements that threatened to derail peace in the region.

Military sources have confirmed that Lt-Gen Hussain met militant commander Baitullah Mehsud at Ludda Scouts Fort in South Waziristan on Wednesday evening.

Tribal sources said the militant commander had come for the meeting with heavily armed bodyguards who took up positions alongside the security forces.

The one-to-one meeting, according to the sources, lasted for about two hours and focused largely on a radio interview by Mr Mehsud, in which he had accused the military of going back on its commitments, harassing and arresting his ‘mujahideen’ and killing innocent women and children, a reference to a recent incident in North Waziristan.

“The government has not kept the agreement with us. It is not holding anymore,” he had said in the interview.

He had also threatened to launch coordinated attacks on security and government installations in South and North Waziristan. No independent account was available of the meeting, though military sources claimed the militant commander apologised for his statement.

Mr Mehsud’s associates in South Waziristan said he was in an inaccessible area and denied that he had tendered an apology.

The militant leader had however, told the radio that he had asked the 21-member committee which had negotiated the peace deal to seek clarification from the military on whether it was interested in keeping the agreement intact.

The meeting appears to have been arranged through the same mediators.

Haji Omar, the commander of the Waziri tribe ‘mujahideen’ told Dawn that he had no information whether Mr Mehsud had apologised for his statement.