QUETTA, Oct 6: Balochistan National Congress president Dr Hakim Lehri has said that President Musharraf should initiate talks with the Baloch leadership to resolve provincial issues as to crush political movement through what he said extra-constitutional methods would develop serious complications.

In an open letter addressed to the president and released to the Press on Wednesday, he strongly demanded that the government should end military action in the province; free the detained political activists and withdraw the fake cases filed against them.

Dr Lehri in the two-page letter pinpointed the excesses committed by former military dictators and civilian autocratic rulers against the Balochistan people and also referred to the resistance faced by the United States in Iraq, saying that political issues could not be resolved by brute force.

The leader advised the military ruler to take bold steps to settle the issues between the federation and Balochistan amicably by ending atrocities committed by the law enforcement agencies against the natives.

He said that to opt for a military action was not difficult, but results of this step should be kept in mind, claiming that Balochs in the sixties and seventies had defeated the oppressors who had wanted to settle issues by force.