PESHAWAR, March 30: Former National Assembly speaker Syed Fakhr Imam has asked the government to stop military operations in Waziristan agencies and Balochistan and hold talks with people fighting against security forces.

Speaking at a seminar entitled ‘Unanimity on nation's concept' organised by the All Pakistan Abdul Qayum Khan Foundation at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, he said the present unrest was a logical outcome of destruction of primary institutions which paved way for a strong political dispensation of a country.

He said rulers abrogated every constitution to prolong their unconstitutional rein.

After the US attack on a Bajaur agency village, Mr Fakhr said, Pakistan was no more an independent sovereign state. Neither the government nor the opposition had protested against it or taken a principled stand on the US-sponsored missile attack, he said.

He said if Pakistan was a democratic country, its lawmakers should have resigned. "Instead, our lawmakers gave a constitutional cover in the form of 17th amendment," he added.

He said the prime minister could differ with the president. However, the president was running and controlling everything single-handedly, he added.

The former speaker underlined the need for framing a law barring elected representatives from holding offices in direct conflict with the national interests.

He said that in the neighbouring country, Congress chief Sonia Ghandhi had set a precedent by resigning from parliament.

The former speaker said a political change was not far away because people had become fed up with the present situation.

Speaking on the occasion, former ISI chief Lt-Gen Hameed Gul (retd), who believed in a ‘soft revolution', said he was still a soldier. He said ‘ground realities' were no more than a mirage; the main force was an ideology which infused faith and an urge of revolution in people.

The preaching of ground realities had turned the rulers into a band of cowards who worshipped the ground realities. He said the US was a super-power and it was painted as ground reality, which forced people to surrender to the US.

"But it does not hold any wisdom. People are challenging its might, where the US has imposed its will," he added.

Hameed Gul said Islam is a living ideology, which believes in the supremacy of Allah against the mundane powers.

He said Pakistan was an unfinished revolution which needed its completion. The present rulers had transformed the army into a tool of imperialism and deprived it of its basic religious identity. He said the youth would lead the Islamic revolution in Pakistan because mullah (clerics) could not do this.