QUETTA, April 17: The Awami National Party has been struggling to unite the divided Pukhtun areas into a single administrative set up as it never recognized the division of the Pukhtun ethnic entity, says Awami National Party chief Senator Asfandyar Wali Khan.

He made these remarks while speaking at public meetings in Chaman, Piralizai, and Gulistan Nurak the other day.

The nationalist leader said that Pakistan would be strengthened if rulers the country was run in accordance with the spirit of federal parliamentary democratic system.

Stressing the need to accomplish the mission of the founder of Khudai Khidmatgar Movement Bacha Khan, Asfandyar Wali said that the world was only now recognizing what the late party leader had stated about resolving problems through non-violence.

Urging upon the Pukhtuns to forge unity, he said there was a need to wage a joint struggle to achieve national rights.

Criticizing those who had dismissed the party leadership as being anti-state and un-Islamic when it had called for settling disputes with India through negotiations besides urging for non- interference in Afghanistan's affairs, adding time had proven that the party's policies were based on ground realities.

The ANP, he said, believed in the sovereignty of parliament, upholding of the constitutional rule, greater autonomy for the federating units, the recognition of the provinces' right to utilize their resources for the local people, beside pursuing an independent foreign policy.

He said that there was a conflict between the party leadership and rulers over the people's rights, adding that the party's leadership accepted the people's authority to formulate the country's policies through its chosen representatives in the parliament. Autocratic rulers wanted to impose their policies on people.

The ANP leader criticized the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and accused the alliance of collaborating with the military, saying generals were attempting to re-introduce the one-unit system by introducing the local government system. The party would foil all such attempts on the part of the usurpers.

Condemning the Wana operation, Asfandyar Wali said that innocent Pukhtuns had been killed to arrest foreign terrorist, adding the establishment knew where about the whereabouts of the Al Qaeda militants and Taliban remnants were hiding but the government was least interested in apprehending the people wanted in this regard.