Diplomatic moot: Khattak meets US ambassador, Australian high commissioner

Says PTI will not impose merger of FATA, K-P on tribespeople

PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Pervez Khattak told US Ambassador to Pakistan David Hale and other officials from the US embassy on Monday the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government will not impose any decisions on the people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). “The people of Fata should be given the right to decide their future by themselves,” a handout issued by the provincial government on Monday quoted Khattak as saying.

Hale was accompanying Peshawar-based US Consul General William Martin and other officials of the US Embassy. Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education Muhammad Atif Khan and Additional Chief Secretary Dr Hammad Awais Agha were also present in the meeting.

While talking to the American envoys, Khattak said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government fully supports the National Action Plan, aiming “to combat all forms of terrorism in the province.”

He said the economy and health sector, and law and order situation as well as the social fabric of the province were badly affected by “Afghan refugees, since they are not restricted to their camps.”

At the meeting, the CM said unemployment is one of the biggest challenges crippling the province’s prosperity. However, Khattak said the provincial government is tackling the problem of unemployment through industrialisation. He said new incentives were being introduced to attract investors. “The intervention from the public sector has also been withdrawn from managing industrial estates and an independent company [has been hired] to better facilitate industrialists,” he said.

Khattak said the current provincial government is spending all available financial resources on over 350 small hydropower projects. It is the priority of the current government to provide clean drinking water to people across the province, he added.

Meanwhile, the High Commissioner of Australia Margaret Adamson also met Khattak the same day and “appreciated the provincial government’s reforms introduced for better governance and transparency,” the handout stated.

Adamson said, “Devolving development and services sectors as well as financial resources was a great signal of the provincial government’s commitment to empower people at local level.” She also showed keen interest in the larger hydropower projects in the province, and said she saw the political and security dynamics of the province as improving.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2015.