June 18, 2007	Monday	Jumadi-us-Sani 02, 1428

PESHAWAR, June 17: Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said that Taliban are a major force in Afghanistan and peace cannot be achieved without their participation in the dialogue process.

Talking to journalists after a general meeting of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) on Sunday, he said that the Pakistan-Afghan Loya Jirga could only be successful if all parties, including Taliban, were included in it.

He said that the jirga had been formed with a view to resolve some disputes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, despite the fact there were no such problems.

The JUI-F chief said that the problem was inside Afghanistan, but the government of that country had not yet identified the parties involved in the conflict.

He demanded that Pakistan should not poke its nose into the internal affairs of Afghanistan.

Maulana Fazl said that the Afghan conflict was directly affecting Pakistan’s tribal areas, which was further affecting peace in the settled areas.

He said that the people on both sides of the Durand Line could not be separated as they had blood relations.

“Peace in Afghanistan holds the key to peace in Pakistan,” he said. He alleged that through the new world order America wanted to bring about geographical changes in some developing countries and the people and governments in those countries should unite to foil such attempts.

Paying tribute to the people of Fata, he said that by staying calm during the war being fought on their borders they had kept their traditions and the mission of Islam alive.

He said that it was the need of the hour that the JUI-F should come with solid and the rationalised policy after its successful government in the NWFP.

“We have to identify conspiracies being hatched against us in order to adopt strategies to counter such conspiracies,” he said.

He called upon the people of Fata to throw their full weight behind ulema in the next general elections like the past.