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IF events in the next two days push Pakistan’s
President Pervez Musharraf to do so, he will have declared a state
of emergency before the “peace jirga” between tribals of the
northwest and Afghanistan and the highest Pakistani and Afghan
government officials.
The jirga (tribal council or
conference) is being held to map out an antiterrorist united front
against Taliban and other militants threatening the stability of
both Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose presidents are allied with and
supported by the United States.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai
told hundreds of Afghan and Pakistan tribal leaders and other key
figures Thursday that both nations could defeat the al-Qaeda and
Taliban threat if they worked together.
“I am confident, I believe ...
if both Afghanistan and Pakistan put their hands together, we will
eliminate in one day oppression against both nations,” Karzai said
in the opening address at three days of antiterror talks.
“Our future and our destiny is
intertwined,” Karzai told the gathering, which is being held to
find ways to halt the escalating al-Qaeda and Taliban threat.
Karzai said the neighbors, which
have been trading recriminations over the roots of the unrest,
should find solutions together.
“If the problem is from the
Afghanistan side, we should seek ways to solve it. If the problem is
in Pakistan, we should find solutions for it,” he said.
The president said he did not
consider the Taliban-linked violence in Afghanistan to be the work
of Afghans.
“This is the work of non-Afghan
elements. This is the work of the enemies of Afghanistan and
Islam,” he said.
Karzai shared the stage with
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in front of about 700
delegates to the “peace jirga,” which opened after the chanting
of Islamic prayers.
Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf is a notable absentee from the talks, having abruptly
pulled out on Wednesday citing an engagement in Islamabad, where on
Thursday he was reported to be considering imposing a state of
emergency, given the recent upsurge in violence.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry
said earlier that Musharraf’s no-show would not have a great
impact on the outcome of the meeting, which has been billed as an
opportunity for tribal leaders to thrash out a strategy to deal with
the escalating terrorism threat.
The meeting is taking place amid
strict security in a huge white tent that has been erected at a
college in Kabul’s west.
Karzai also used the occasion to
condemn the Taliban’s kidnapping of women, which he said had
defamed Afghanistan.
The hard-line movement has been
holding 16 South Korean women, and five men, since July 19. Two male
hostages have already been killed.
“It has not happened in the
history of Afghanistan that we are kidnapping women,” Karzai
said, describing the taking of female hostages as a “historic”
defamation.
The elders represent tribes whose
territory straddles the remote and rugged border region between
Afghanistan and Pakistan where the Taliban has been able to regroup
since being ousted from power by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan
in late 2001.
The region is also notorious for
al-Qaeda operatives, and Washington has accused the Pakistani
authorities of allowing the tribal zones to become a safe haven from
which terrorist attacks can be planned and committed.
Security is tight around the
jirga, and hundreds of police and soldiers were patrolling the area.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force had armored
vehicles stationed around the educational facility.
Around 2,500 extra police and an
unknown number of soldiers have been mobilized specifically for the
jirga, officials said, adding that cars moving around the city were
being searched.
In Islamabad, Pakistani President
Musharraf met Thursday with close political aides on whether to
impose a state of emergency due to “external and internal
threats,” an official said.
Official sources said late
Wednesday they believed that proclamation of a state of emergency
was likely later Thursday following the talks at his camp outside
the capital Islamabad.
Sources close to his office said
Thursday that Musharraf himself was not in favor of emergency rule,
but his close political advisers were pushing for a declaration in
order to shore up the embattled government.
“The president is reluctant to
go for emergency despite suggestions from his political allies,” a
source at the president’s office told AFP.
Information Minister Mohammad
Ali Durrani said the government was “observing the situation and
whatever decision is taken would be announced later in the day.”
Musharraf went into the meeting
with his aide as he struggles to contain an upsurge in militant
violence in volatile tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
The president had been
considering imposing emergency rule since Tuesday, when he met Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz and other senior aides, the official sources
told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Deputy Information Minister Tariq
Azeem confirmed the measure was discussed then and could not be
ruled out.
-- With an AFP/
report by Rana Jawad
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