PESHAWAR, Nov 30: The central committee of Awami National Party, met under the chairmanship of its president, Asfandyar Wali Khan, endorsed the party’s withdrawal from the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy.

Members of the central committee, through a unanimously adopted resolution, approved the party president’s decision to withdraw support to the ARD, said a press release issued by the ANP’s central information secretary, Haji Mohammed Adeel.

The resolution said that the ANP had an independent stand on the current situation in Afghanistan which was, apparently, in contradiction to the stand of the component parties of the alliance.

ANP, further read the resolution, had always been supporting an independent and peaceful foreign policy that should also be based on the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

Furthermore, ANP did not believe in getting into the government or grabbing power under the cover of religion and had always been opposed to aggression and violence.

On the basis of these principles the party, contained the resolution, could not work together with the component parties of the ARD as they had totally separate line of action and policy viz-a-viz Afghanistan.

The working committee extended support to the ongoing Bonn summit and hoped that any future dispensation based on an intra-Afghan dialogue would yield the desired results in terms of restoring peace to Afghanistan.

It resolved that any future broad-based setup in Afghanistan would only be successful if it guaranteed representation to all the ethnic groups of the war-ravaged country in accordance with their share in the total population of the country.

Through another resolution the party observed that if the ethnic Pakhtoons of Afghanistan were not given representation in the new setup in accordance with their proportionate share in the total population of country - on the basis of 1973-74 census held in Afghanistan-peace prospects in the war-ravaged country would remain at a greater risk.