Pashtun Jirga to strengthen Federation: lawmaker

PESHAWAR: Member Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mir Kalam Wazir on Sunday said that the proposed Pashtun Qaumi Jirga would not only help solve the Pashtuns’ problems but would also strengthen the federation.

Talking to The News, the provincial lawmaker said the Jirga should have been constituted much earlier as it would have prevented the destruction in the country in general and Pashtun areas in particular.

Mir Kalam Wazir said that the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) had planned convening the Pashtun Qaumi Jirga. He said that PTM has completed its homework for convening the jirga and the PTM leaders would give it the final touches at the end of the winter.

He said that bringing the people of different ideologies together was not an easy task. “It would not be a single sitting but could take several meetings with the representatives from all walks of life from the Pashtun society,” he added.

The Jirga would include politicians, professionals, students, labourers and peasants to encompass all segments of the Pashtun society, he said.

He said that people from different classes and ideologies would sit together and discuss their problems. “A line of action would be decided to implement the decisions taken at that Jirga,” he added.

However, he said that it would also depend on the political parties’ will for helping PTM in convening the proposed Jirga.

Mir Kalam said that even if PTM faced difficulties in convening the Jirga, it would continue its efforts until the entire Pashtun nation in Pakistan devised a strategy for solving their problems. “Even if someone refuses to sit with us, we will utilise all traditional means of a Jirga, including ‘nanawatay’ to convince them to work together,” he said.

The lawmaker from North Waziristan said the demands of the civil rights movement would strengthen the federation as PTM wants supremacy of the Constitution. He said the Jirga would work to ensure that the country’s Constitution was upheld and nobody could violate it.

“We demand that all the missing persons be presented in the court,” he said, adding, this is not an anti-state act and would rather strengthen the federation. “When we talk about the rights of Pashtuns, it does not mean that we want violation of rights of other ethnic groups in the country,” he argued.

“The demands of equality should not be viewed as opposition to the country or institutions. Declaring the Pashtun leaders as traitors would not serve any purpose but would complicate the situation. The best way to sort out issues was dialogue and talks,” he opined.