PESHAWAR, Jan 21: NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani has called for withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, saying that their presence is endangering the security of the entire region.

“The roots of terrorism are based in Afghanistan and not in Pakistan and efforts should be made to control terrorism there,” he said, while speaking at a ceremony held on Wednesday to launch five new courses in the Khyber Medical University.

The governor said that Peshawar faced many threats but the government had successfully managed to overcome them.

Mr Ghani said that tribesmen were solving problems of their areas and holding jirgas and raising lashkars to defend themselves. He said the government never wanted to use force in tribal areas but it had to curb Taliban militants’ unlawful activities.

“We are successfully moving forward to handle the law and order problem in certain areas of the province,” Mr Ghani said. He expressed the hope that massive socio-economic development programmes would be launched in a few months for people’s well being.

The governor said that development of infrastructure and communication networks and improvement of education and health services would be top priority and efforts were already under way to arrange resources for the purpose.

He said there should be no fears about the future of the province because problems were being solved and courageous steps would be taken for socio-economic uplift of the people.

The governor also said that serious efforts were being made to reasonably manage resources to enable the public sector universities in the province to go ahead with their development plans and to launch new ones.