CHARSADDA: The Awami National Party has agreed to attend a multiparty conference called by the Pakistan People’s Party to discuss the revival of the military courts in the country.

The decision came following a meeting between ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and a PPP delegation led by Senator Nayyar Bukhari, which met the former at his Wali Bagh residence here on Monday.

The conference is scheduled to take place on March 4.

The delegation also delivered an invitation by PPP chairperson Asif Ali Zardari to the ANP chief to attend the moot, which he accepted.

On the occasion, the ANP chief said that his party fully backed the PPP stance on holding the multiparty conference on the military tribunals’ revival. He said the ANP would also take up the issue of Pakhtuns’ arrest in Punjab at the conference.

Later, talking to reporters, Nayyar Bukhari said that the military courts were formed for a period of about two years back in 2015.

He said that the incumbent government’s ‘incompetency’ had turned it into a major issue.

Mr Bukhari said that ideally the federal government should have resolved the issue before completion of courts’ stipulated term.

He said that the situation in the country was still similar to the one when the Army Public School in Peshawar was attacked by the terrorists.

The PPP leader said that the multiparty conference would take important decisions besides charting a common course of action to steer the country out of the crises.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2017