Top leadership sits together to discuss Balochistan

In what appeared to be a case of better late than never, the top leadership of the country decided to form a six-member committee to spearhead a dialogue with disgruntled Baloch nationalist leaders.

In a bid to commence new initiatives in the province to tame what some participants called an active insurgency similar to the one that broke Pakistan into two in 1971, the country’s top political and military leadership held a meeting on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Inter-Services Intelligence Chief Lt. Gen Zaheerul Islam, Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Aslam Raisani, Governor Balochistan Zulfiqar Magsi were attended the meeting.

The top leadership decided to take a few steps at the earliest including announcement of a fresh phase of negotiations with Baloch dissidents.

Federal Minister for Informational Qamar Zaman Kaira briefed the media, saying a six-member committee will be formed to start the proposed dialogue process.

Giving details of the meeting, the minister said that both the federal and provincial governments will have three members each in the proposed panel, which is scheduled to meet weekly. The body will also oversee the implementation of the government’s legal, political, economic, constitutional and social initiatives in the region.

One of the major issues of the province is the role of Frontier Corps (FC) that also came under discussion in the meeting.
He observed, “From now on, the entire deployment of the FC in Balochistan will be decided by Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani”.

He said, the FC, which is often accused of being embroiled in cases of abductions and extrajudicial killings in the province will be under complete control of the provincial authorities.

He noted, “General Kayani also asked the federal and provincial governments to provide funds for scholarships to the Baloch youth, who were studying at a cadet college and a school set up in the cantonment buildings at Kohlu and Sui”.

Kaira was of the opinion that the latest development will help security forces for concentrating law and order in Balochistan.

The recent sitting came days after a conference on Balochistan organized by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) in which all the political parties unanimously called for withdrawal of security forces in the provinces and replace with civilians forces.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=23962

Posted by Faisal Farooq on May 30 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.