ANP ‘to unify Pakhtuns’ in K-P, Balochistan

Asfandyar calls for creating another province

PESHAWAR: President Awami National party (ANP) Asfandyar Wali Khan has said that after first unifying Pakhtuns in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, he would then bring together Pakhtuns living in “northern and southern Pakhtunkhwa”.

By “northern and southern Pakhtunkhwa”, he meant Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA.

“Pakhtuns across Pakistan will be united,” said Asfandyar while addressing a party gathering in Charsadda, and called for creation of another province. 



Rights of smaller provinces

The ANP chief said that small province had been deprived of their rights, but this policy would bear consequences. “However much you keep us deprived of our rights, consequences will be there,” he warned.

“Today, ANP is making the demand in the form of a request but this will not always be the same. Tomorrow someone may decide to take a stand and take rights by force. Imagine what will happen if people decide to take their rights by force,” he said, reminding that the country was already facing a precarious situation.

He said that the government of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi still needed to honour Nawaz Sharif’s commitments, including the merger of FATA with K-P and granting due rights to the province in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

“We are being deprived of our rights under CPEC projects,” Asfandyar said.  “Along with Punjab, you also have to take care of K-P, Balochistan and Sindh. You are not the prime minister of just Punjab,” he said. “There is no place for such mindset now.”

Criticising Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, he said he might have been a good cricketer, but knew anything about politics. “No politician is safe from his dirty language which also affects the moral standard of his followers.”



Stressing the need for a probe into a girl’s humiliation in Dera Ismail Khan, he said that the involvement of a PTI minister was the main issue.

The issue could not be resolved by just issuing a notice to a party member who had accused a minister of patronising the culprits, he said, adding that the K-P government should hold a thorough investigation and bring everyone involved in the heinous crime to justice. 

K-P, FATA merger

Asfandyar also called for a constitutional amendment for granting seats in the K-P Assembly for people of FATA and inducting some ministers and advisers from there into the provincial cabinet.

The ANP, he said, would not accept the extension of Islamabad High Court’s jurisdiction to FATA.

“Extending the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) will be acceptable. Can the federal government bring people in Karachi under the [purview of] PHC?” he asked. “Why are they treating the people of FATA in this manner?”

He criticised the leaderships of both Jamiat Ulemae Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) and said the ANP would always stand by the people of FATA for their rights.

Ties with Afghanistan

Urging the federal government to resolve all outstanding issues with Afghanistan peacefully, the ANP chief said that people on both sides of the border had close relations and depended on each other.