July 22, 2008	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1429

ISLAMABAD, July 21: PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari has said the government has worked out a strategy to combat militancy and terrorism in tribal areas.

Talking to a delegation of PPP MNAs from NWFP at the Zardari House on Monday, he said that crisis in Fata was political, and not military. He asked the legislators to visit their constituencies and explain the government’s anti-terror strategy to supporters.

According to a handout issued by the PPP’s media centre, Mr Zardari said the main plank of the PPP’s Fata policy was political engagement, massive socio-economic development and use of force if required to restore the writ of the state.

Mr Zardari said Fata continued to remain backward and there was a need to integrate it into the mainstream of national politics in such a way that traditions and customs of its people were not violated.

He said that dictators had sheltered terrorists and fed resentment and radicalism. Due to the Afghan war in the days of dictatorship, some elements in intelligence apparatus had developed linkages with militants, he added.

Mr Zardari said that in order to bring Fata into mainstream national politics, Benazir Bhutto had moved the Supreme Court to extend the Political Parties Act to the tribal areas.

This, he said, was necessary because religious parties used mosques to spread their political aims and the mainstream democratic parties were barred from presenting an alternative view.

He expressed a hope that the international community would realise that it was important to invest in human development rather than merely on building war machines.

He said the recent Biden-Lugar bill appeared to be a step in that direction as it authorised $7.5 billion over the next five years in non-military aid and for social development.

The PPP co-chairman said that attempts to reform Fata and its people only through military operation had increased the number of extremists and militants and it was time to undertake a social operation that was integral to the social norms.

He said emphasis the PPP had laid on the tribal areas could be gauged from the fact that before her assassination, Ms Bhutto had set up a special Fata committee of the party to draft proposals for party policy.

He said Ms Bhutto had also suggested that to begin with, agency councils on the pattern of the Northern Areas Legislative Council be set up and development activities in Fata would be undertaken in consultation with these councils, he said.

Lal Mohammad Khan, Khanzada Khan, Malik Azmat, Tariq Khattak, Noor Alam Afridi, Said Allauddin and Sardar Ali Khan attended the meeting.