National consensus: Imran’s party to hold national conference on terrorism

PTI chief will preside over the moot scheduled for October 5 in Islamabad.

ISLAMABAD: A week after the All Parties’ Conference hosted by the government, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to convene a ‘National Conference’ to chalk out a strategy to counter the menace of terrorism.

PTI Chairman Imran Khan will preside over the conference scheduled for October 5 in Islamabad. The PTI’s conference will focus on how to ensure peace in the volatile areas, particularly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. More than 500 political and religious scholars will attend the conference, which will issue a white paper, highlighting Islamic teachings on peace.

Sharing the proposed agenda of the conference, the PTI Religious Affairs Wing President Mufti Abdul Qawi said participants of the meeting would take up the issue of drone strikes and conflicts within or across our borders.

“All political parties whose ideologies are compatible with the PTI’s manifesto will be invited,” Qawi said.

He, however, made it clear that Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami National Party (ANP) would not be invited to the moot, “as these parties have failed to deliver on their promises”.

Meanwhile, PTI’s Deputy Information Secretary Adnan Randhawa said his party had initiated efforts to evolve consensus at intellectual and religious level that Islam is a religion of peace and it does not allow inhuman acts.

He said PTI regarded drone strikes as a major cause of the rising insurgency in Pakistan. “Planned National Conference is an initiative to strengthen continued efforts to bring peace back to Pakistan,” he told The Express Tribune.

It will be PTI’s first ever attempt to convene a national conference. But analysts are not much optimistic about the possible outcome of the planned conference.

The two in-camera sessions of the parliament also took briefing from heads of top spy agencies and passed recommendations to prepare national security policy but no headway could be made towards peace.

“The PTI leadership has a serious cognition crisis when it comes to dealing with terrorism,” said Harris Khalique, poet and columnist.

“They want to hold dialogue with terrorists in K-P and do not criticise armed operation against terrorists in Karachi. The recent attack on Army personnel is a slap in the face of the last APC,” he observed.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2013.