PESHAWAR: Tribal elders from North and South Waziristan Agencies, who were nominated on the Pakistan-Afghanistan grand jirga, on Saturday boycotted a briefing here at the Governor’s House and left the premises.
They said: “When our own houses are not safe, how can we extinguish fire in others’ houses.”
Rustum Shah Mohamand, a former ambassador to Kabul, briefed members of the jirga about the agenda and other engagements in Kabul on Aug 9.
Malik Alamzeb Dawar, a jirga member from the North Waziristan agency, told journalists outside the Governor’s House that “how we can help restore peace in Afghanistan when our own land and people are not safe in Waziristan. Our first priority is to put our house in order.”
About 40 nominees from both agencies boycotted the briefing.
Apart from tribal elders, six MNAs and senators, including Noorul Haq Qadri, Senator Habibullah and Hafiz Abdul Malik from Fata also boycotted the briefing because they had reservations about the nomination of the members on the jirga.
MNA Khalilur Rehman said that why Taliban had not been included in the jirga process. He said that they disagreed with the nomination process.
Rustam Shah Mohamand, while briefing the members of the jirga, said that they were not optimistic about the joint jirga because it had a limited role to resolve disputes among small tribes.
He said that the prevailing situation across the border was internal affair of Afghanistan.
He said that he would submit and provide some proposal to establish peace and eradicate terrorism.
For this purpose, he said, the Pakistan delegation would propose to establish peace committees in areas along both sides of the border.
He said the Pakistani delegation would also propose to engage traders from Pakistan and Afghanistan to initiate economic activities in the border area.
He said that there was a suggestion to form a commission comprising elders from both sides of the border to hold negotiations between parliament and the Karzai government.
He said that he could also propose deployment of the forces from Muslim countries.
PPI adds: Mr Mohamand said the inaugural session would be addressed by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
He said that seven jirga working committees would be formed to deliberate upon different issues and submit recommendations to Mr Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, chairman of the executive committee of jirga.
He said that a permanent jirga commission would also be formed to oversee decisions of jirga and ensure its implementation.
