Fading hopes: Pakistan clerics reject Kabul moot invitation

Demand clarification over anti-Taliban remarks from Afghan clerics in 48 hours,.

ISLAMABAD: Days after a council of Pakistani clerics announced a boycott of the much-anticipated ulema conference in Kabul, another group of Pakistani clerics on Sunday declined to participate in the moot unless the Afghan clerics’ council clarifies anti-Taliban remarks by one of its members in 48 hours.

The fresh move diminishes hopes further regarding the conference, which was twice delayed in the past three months due to controversies.

According to the head of the Majlis Sutul Islam (Voice of Islam), Mufti Abu Hurraira Muhiuddin – a member of the Pakistani religious scholars’ committee which met Afghan clerics in Islamabad last week as part of preparations for the ulema conference – the remarks by members of the Afghan clerics’ council had put the fate of the meeting in doubt.

“Afghan scholars’ remarks against the Afghan Taliban have created a deadlock… we have written to the chief of the Afghan Ulema Council Maulvi Qayyamuddin Kashaf to clarify the statements in 48 hours,” he maintained.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2013.