Security policy: Premier to take Fata MPs into confidence

Nawaz is keen on evolving broad-based consensus on the new national security policy.

ISLAMABAD:

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has decided to convene a meeting of parliamentarians from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) on Wednesday to discuss issues relating to national security, development and administration to bring the area at par with the rest of the country.

“The prime minister will hold an important meeting with members of the National Assembly and Senate elected from Fata at the PM office on July 10, where issues of grave importance relating to the tribal belt will be discussed,” according to a statement issued from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Prime Minister’s Political Secretary Dr Asif Kirmani has contacted the Fata lawmakers and invited them for the meeting, it added.

Sources in the PM office told The Express Tribune that the Fata parliamentarians also wanted representatives of security agencies to be present at the meeting.

The prime minister, however, was of the contrary view given that military and security officials are due to give an in-camera briefing at the all-party conference (APC) on July 12. Sources added that Nawaz was keen on evolving broad-based consensus on the new national security policy.



Information Minister Senator Pervaiz Rashid said such moves were aimed at quashing the impression that Pakistan was subservient to foreign instructions. It is the duty of the state to eliminate terrorism and restore peace, he added.

Referring to the proposed APC, he said: “The country’s policies will not change on one phone call from abroad and the elected representatives will formulate a national policy under one roof.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2013.