Daily Times

KHYBER AGENCY: Tribal elders criticized an anti-Pakistan jirga convened in Kabul yesterday and stressed upon the Afghan government not to let someone use Afghan soil against Pakistan.

They said they will never hesitate to lay down their lives for the sake of their motherland. The views were expressed by the tribal elders while addressing a Fata peace grand jirga held at the Sports Complex, Jamrud on Sunday.

Besides former federal ministers Noor Haq Qadri and Malik Waris Khan Afridi more than two thousand participants, including tribal elites, members of civil society and tribal people from different walks of life from across FATA and Afghanistan joined the gathering.

Addressing the occasion, Qadri, Waris, Malik Darya Khan, Malik Manan and Afghan cleric Hashmi criticised the anti-Pakistan gathering held in Kabul on Saturday and demanded that the Afghan government not allow anyone to use Afghan land against Pakistan and to avoid such kind of activities that affected bilateral relations of both the neighboring countries.

“Spreading of Indian influence in Afghanistan and establishing of more than sixty five Indian consulates causing security threat to Pakistan,” they argued.

The speakers added that when the USSR attacked Afghanistan in 1979, it was India that supported the Russian offense, however Pakistan came forward and extended every possible assistance to the Afghan refugees but ironically, the Afghan rulers had forgot all of sacrifices of Pakistan and let the Indians use Afghan land against Pakistan which is regretful.

The tribal elders said that the Durand Line was a permanent and recognized border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and those elements in Afghanistan who denied that fact were just making it a political slogan to misguide the Afghans.

“Tribesmen favor better relations base on mutual interests of both countries and the tribals are ready to play their due role to establish good relation between Pakistan and Afghanistan”, the elders remarked.

Offering their services, they urged the Pak authorities to initiate a tribal Jirga that visits Kabul and calls on Afghan rulers to bring normalcy to the relationship between the two brotherly neighbours.

It is to be mentioned here that last week an anti-Pakistan Tribal Jirga had been organized in Kabul in which speakers uttered some poisonous words against Pakistan and had rejected the Durand Line as a permanent boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Prior to it, according to administration official, due to security reasons and tribal Jirga, the Jamrud bazaar was suspended for all kind of activities.