MMA revived with old spirit, claims Fazl

Says opportunists complicating issue of Fata status

PESHAWAR: Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has claimed that the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance of religious parties has been revived with the same spirit as the past.

“Let me give you good news; MMA has been revived with mutual trust,” he said during his address at a Khatm-e-Nabuwwat conference on Sunday.

He said those being funded by “Jews” had endangered the country’s Islamic and cultural status but the MMA would defend it and they would be defeated. “We are capable of gathering five million people and this is what has panicked them.”



Fazl said the issue of the future status of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) was simple but some opportunists were trying to make matters worse. Blackmailing or threats would never help resolve the issue, he said. “We just proposed that the tribesmen’s consent should be sought and the decisions made acceptable to them. Even the armed forces have made it clear that the decision on Fata’s future should be in accordance with the tribesmen’s will.”

Fazl said issues related to Fata’s future would persist till Article 247 of the Constitution existed and a committee led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Sartaj Aziz had made it clear that the amendment could not be made in the next five years. This was why a bill for merging Fata with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had been withdrawn from the National Assembly agenda last week, he said.

He said he had heard that there would be a huge influx of finances in the province, but “taking money from the government will destroy the seminaries”.



He said an attempt for making amendments to the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat law was resisted in 2008 and it was again amended during the recent electoral reforms but the move was resisted and the amendment was withdrawn within 48 hours.

Talking about United States President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Fazl said the United Nations did not even recognise it as Israeli territory and the US would never be able to shift its embassy to the city.