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Jirga members rush to Waziristan for talks

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: Pro-Taliban jirga members rushed to North Waziristan Agency on Tuesday to save the 2006 peace agreement, as the government insisted that security checkposts would be removed only if tribal militants guaranteed peace in the region.

“The government has lost trust in the tribal militants and the checkposts can only be removed if peace is guaranteed,” a jirga member quoted NWFP Governor Ali Jan Orakzai as saying to the jirga members on the second day of negotiations.

He said that MMA’s MNA Maulana Nek Zaman, Maulana Alam, Malik Nasrullah, Qadir Khan and some other jirga members had rushed to North Waziristan to seek a guarantee from the Taliban that they would keep peace in the region in return for removal of the security checkposts. “The pro-Taliban members of the jirga were asked if they could offer guarantees on behalf of the militants but the members said they would talk to the Taliban leadership to secure the assurance,” the member and a government official, asking not to be named, told Daily Times.

The jirga member said the governor was pressed for some concessions but he was “inflexible” and linked the removal of checkposts with a pledge from the Taliban that they would honour the peace deal terms in letter and spirit.

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