ISLAMABAD, April 5: Party leaders in the two houses of parliament discussed with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday the economic difficulties faced by Pakistan due to its engagement in the war on terror and financial assistance it needed for reconstruction of the areas affected by last year's devastating floods.

Munir Khan Orakzai, the parliamentary leader of the Fata group, complained that very little aid for promotion of education reached the tribal areas which were beset by the war on terror. Dawn

Talking to , Mr Orakzai said the British prime minister had assured him that he would send a high-level delegation comprising finance secretary and other officials to hold meetings with tribal leaders to understand their needs.

The meeting was arranged by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. However, some of the leaders, including PML-Q's Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, opted to stay away.

Jamaat-i-Islami Naib Amir Senator Khurshid Ahmad told reporters that he had urged Mr Cameron to revisit the strategy for war on terror because it had failed to achieve its objectives of eliminating terrorism over the past 10 years. “Ten years is too long a period not to revisit a policy that has failed to deliver.”

Although Mr Cameron, according to the Jamaat leader, did not agree with the assessment, the British premier said it was important that the European leadership knew what people in the Muslim world felt about the bloodbath in Libya.

“It is high time that all those engaged in this effort should objectively review whether the outrageous and highly condemnable attack of 9/11 was a greater crime against humanity or the response under which war on terror has been unleashed in the world. The world today is much more unsafe and terror-ridden,” Mr Ahmad said he asserted during the meeting.

He said that although he had been a staunch critic of the way Col Muammar Qadhafi had ruled Libya, still he, along with an overwhelming majority of people in the Arab world, had strong reservations over the US-Nato military action in Libya.

“This violation of the sovereignty of a state on the pretext of humanitarian intervention is against all principles of international law and the UN charter, and is also counter-productive,” he said.

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