PESHAWAR, Jan 27: Pukhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) Chairman Mahmud Khan Achakzai has called for creating a collective unit for Pukhtuns, comprising the NWFP, Fata, Northern Areas, Attock and Mianwali in Punjab as well as Pukhtun-dominated parts of Balochistan.

“The province thus formed should be named as Pukhtunkhwa, Afgania or Pukhtunistan and should have a single representative assembly,”he said while addressing the 5th provincial conference of the party here late on Friday night.

He said the rights of the Pukhtuns were being usurped. They had ruled the region for years but had now been made to live a slave’s life, he deplored.

“In order to get our rights back, we need to show unity within our ranks at the national level. Even then if we do not get our rights, we will go to the international court of justice,” he warned.

Mr Achakzai urged the educated lot, especially journalists and professors, to play their role in countering anti-Pukhtuns

propaganda.He also appealed to the ANP to launch a joint struggle with them for Pukhtuns’ rights.

“Pukhtuns are a peace-loving nation that has no bias for or against any religion or culture. They have lived in peaceful co-existence with Sikhs and Hindus for centuries,” he said.

The Pukhtuns, he said, were passing through a critical phase of their existence.

On the one hand, they were being killed in Afghanistan while on the other, they were being made hostage by foreign militants, he added.

Once there was reconciliation among the warring factions in Afghanistan, the US-led allied forces could be asked to leave the war-ravaged country, he said.

The PkMAP chief asked the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) to join hands with his party in order to bring reconciliation among the warring factions in Afghanistan.

“Let us play a role in bringing the warring factions to the negotiating table and put an end to the decades-old rivalry that has claimed thousands of lives in Afghanistan,” he said, adding: “We are ready to convince our friends in Afghanistan for talks and the MMA, especially Maulana Fazlur Rehman, should try to convince his friends.”

Mr Achakzai urged the Alliance for Restoration for Democracy (ARD) and the MMA to launch a joint struggle for ending the political role of the army and intelligence agencies.

The country had been suffering from various crises which could not be overcome by army generals.

He called for putting in place an interim set-up, comprising those judges who had refused to take oath under the PCO, and holding elections under an independent election commission.Accusing the western powers for lending helping hands to dictators in the third world, the PkMAP chairman, who is also the chief of the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM), warned that the policy would make the extremist forces even stronger.

He said that democratic forces should be preferred to dictators.

Earlier, delegates of the party from across the province elected Mukhtar Khan Yousafzai as president, Dr Said Alam Mehsood as senior vice-president, Arshad Ali advocate as provincial vice-president and Arbab Mujeeb-ur-Rehman as general secretary. They were administered the oath by the party chairman.