Pakistan warns US over aid terms
ISLAMABAD: On a day of fast moving developments, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari late last night approved the imposition of Shariah laws in parts of the country’s restive northwest, including Swat, in return for a controversial deal with the Taleban for laying down their arms.
Zardari signed the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation after Parliament approved the measure earlier in the day, Geo TV quoted senior North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour as saying.
The regulation will see the imposition of Shariah laws in the Malkhand division of NWFP that comprises seven districts, including Swat, where the writ of the Taleban largely runs.
Zardari had given his nod for the Feb. 16 deal between the NWFP government and Taleban-linked radical cleric Sufi Mohammad but balked at acceding to it in face of growing international pressure.
“We respect the mandate of the provincial government and congratulate the people,” Geo TV quoted Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani as saying after the house cleared the measure, following a walkout by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) members.
Speaking earlier in the day after the pact was tabled in the National Assembly, Gilani said this had been done as the government wanted to build national consensus on the measure. “We did not want to by-pass the house as the Parliament is sovereign,” APP news agency quoted Gilani as saying.
Gilani said he was present at meetings with Zardari and the local government “where the president gave the consent that you should go ahead and you should have (the) deal.”
Also yesterday, Pakistan accused the United States and the West yesterday of generating “ill will” and warned US Sen. John Kerry against attaching conditions to a massive aid package. The chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has backed a bill that would triple economic assistance for Pakistan, a key US ally in the fight against militants, to $7.5 billion over five years.
But Gilani criticized conditions attached to the package. Although the bill meets some long-standing requests for military equipment, it requires the White House to certify that Pakistan is fighting terror and that its military and intelligence services do not support extremists.
