Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has offered mediation with the Taliban and other militant groups to bring peace in the country. "The on-going insurgency is unacceptable and if it is allowed to continue, it would ruin peace in the country," said the PTI Chairman while addressing a press conference here on Wednesday.
"Our internal security, economy, Federation and even our survival is at stake due to involvement in someone else's war, therefore, it is time to wake up with the resolve of saving Pakistan," Imran said.
He said if the government permitted him under the 1973 Constitution, he was willing to travel to the tribal areas and elsewhere to negotiate peace. Imran said that the US had totally failed in Afghanistan and if the US and the Karazai regime could ask for dialogue with the Taliban, why Pakistan was relying solely on military solutions and could not start negotiation with the Taliban.
"Mediation offer has been made only on one condition that the government would not undermine his peace efforts under the US pressure," said Imran, adding that the peace agreement once reached could be presented before parliament for ratification.
He urged the government to convene an all parties' conference to carve a home-grown foreign policy to address the growing internal and external security threats, vis-a-vis war on terror. The government must immediately cancel the visas of the foreign security personnel, who were reported to be involved in the current insurgency in the country and bloodshed of innocent people of Pakistan.
The PTI Chairman stated that without peace and security, there could be no economic turnaround. "|It is clear that the government has no comprehensive strategy to deal with the problem of extremism and terrorism," he added. "Majority of the Pakistanis are helpless victims of this war. According to the US State Department, the number of terrorist attacks around the world fell by 18 percent last year, but rose drastically in Pakistan," said the PTI Chairman.
Attacks in Pakistan were more than double between 2007 and 2008 to about 1,800 and have quadrupled since 2006. He said the external debt of Pakistan had increased to 15 billion dollars during the last 21 months while the internal debt touched rupees five trillion due to weak and directionless policies of the previous and present government.
The PTI Chairman stated that recent reports in the Western press about the US decision to expand covert military operations inside Pakistan, targeting Quetta and other parts of Balochistan was a source of alarm that could lead to destabilisation of the country.
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