KARACHI: Awami National Party (ANP) chief Asfandyar Wali Khan has warned against sending army troops to Saudi Arabia and said that any decision in this regard should be made by parliament and not only by the government.

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the Sindh Council of the ANP here on Thursday, he said that the conflict in Yemen was not “our war” and warned that if Pakistan became a part of it, the situation in Balochistan might deteriorate. But, he avoided clarifying how such a move could affect the province.

Also read: ANP for APC on sending army to Yemen

He advised the government to refrain from taking any decision on Yemen issue on its own and seek a consensus through a joint session of parliament or an all-party conference.

However, the ANP chief said that every Muslim was obliged to protect borders and holy places of Saudi Arabia and he was ready to go there for this purpose.

He said that a consensus had been evolved in Wednesday’s meeting of different parties in Karachi that Pakistan should avoid being involved in the “war of others”.

In a veiled reference to the Afghan war, he said that an individual had taken such a decision in the past and the nation was still facing retribution for it.

In reply to a question, Asfandyar Wali criticised the local government (LG) system envisaged for Pukhtunkhwa, particularly the decision to hold election for of village councils on non-party basis and announce its results after a delay of 10 days.

According to the constitution, he said, delimitation of constituencies was the task of the election commission but in KP, the job had been taken over by the provincial government. Under the LG system, he said, the chief minister was empowered to remove a Nazim without issuing any show-cause notice to him and reject a unanimous resolution of a district council without giving any reason.

The ANP chief said that till yesterday Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Imran Khan raised questions on the status of the National Assembly but now he was impatient to return to the house.

He defended the ANP’s decision to forge an election alliance for LG polls with the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl), saying that the two parties had entered such alliances in the past.

Answering another question, he said that his party was not satisfied with the process of return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to North Waziristan because they were being asked to take oath of loyalty to the country, which was too much. Moreover, the areas to which the IDPs were returning needed reconstruction and rehabilitation.

About the video statement of Saulat Mirza, a death row convict, the ANP chief said that it had no legal moorings but allegations levelled in it were serious and a transparent inquiry into the allegations was in the interest of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2015

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