PESHAWAR: Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan, the head of the new Afghan regime … who addressed his first Press conference yesterday [July 24] after assuming power, is reported to have confirmed that “those Ministers of the former Royal Afghan regime, who were suspected to have resorted to corruption, would be tried by the Revolutionary Government”. According to reports, he said that “most efficient and capable persons” would be appointed as Ministers … “but there would be few from the army”. …

Agency reports add: Questioned about his reference to Pakistan vis-à-vis the so-called issue of Pakhtoonistan in his first broadcast … the Afghan President was quoted as having said that “Pakhtoonistan was an incontrovertible reality”. He expressed the hope that the issue would be resolved []honourably in accordance with the wishes of the Pakhtoons and the Baluch, and their leaders. — Special correspondent.

[Meanwhile, according to news agencies from Washington,] The US Government is agreeable to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahelvi’s wish to step up Iranian arms purchases in the United States… . The Iranian monarch is said to be greatly interested in the “F-14”, a new combined fighter-bomber and pursuit plane which, however, is not being mass-produced.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2023