PESHAWAR: Khwaja Shahabuddin, Central Minister for Information and Broadcasting, today [Feb 11] refuted the Opposition charges that President Ayub Khan had not consulted the accompanying Ministers before signing the Tashkent Declaration. He said all of them were in full agreement about the terms laid down in the Declaration.

Addressing the newly-elected Chairmen of Union Councils and Union Committees of Peshawar Tehsil at the Town Hall here, he said the draft of the Tashkent agreement had been passing through their hands before it was signed. It was amended according to their suggestions at every stage, he added. He said it was not true that the Declaration was the sole work of President Ayub.

The Minister also refuted charges levelled by the Opposition that the Declaration had put the Kashmir problem in the background and said that the Tashkent accord had actually brought fresh hopes for the settlement of Kashmir and other disputes with India.

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies from Lahore,] the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ismail Ahmad Kiftaru, said here yesterday the problems of Kashmir and Palestine constituted a challenge to the Islamic world and called for complete unity amongst the Muslim countries. The Grand Mufti was speaking at a reception held in his honour.

The Grand Mufti paid homage to Allama Iqbal and said his conception and exposition of the ideology of Pakistan was the first step towards the formation of an effective Islamic bloc. The Mufti hoped for a time when relations between Pakistan and Arabs and other Muslim peoples would transcend the boundaries of formal friendship and alliances and come to a stage of real brotherhood.

The Grand Mufti of Syria also visited Darbar Data Gunj Baksh here yesterday to pay homage to the leading divine of the region and offered Fateha. He spent about half-an-hour at the Darbar.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2016