Pro-Taleban militants on Sunday called a month-long cease-fire in the tribal region on the Afghan border to give tribal elders a chance to broker a settlement.
"We have decided that there will be a total cease-fire in the area from our side for one month, as the government wants to set up a tribal jirga here," Abdullah Farhad, a 'commander' of the militants in North Waziristan, told Reuters.
Pakistan has some 80,000 regular army troops on the border with Afghanistan, most of them deployed in North and South Waziristan where al Qaeda-linked militants have been operating alongside Taleban and tribal sympathisers.
"We want tribal jirga to work freely and settle the issue," Farhad said.
He said the militants were calling on the government to abolish all new checkpoints in the region and replace security forces deployed at checkpoints with tribal police.
He also demanded the release of detained tribesmen and the reinstatement of officials who had been removed from their jobs in the semi-autonomous region.
"If our demands are fulfilled, we can consider extending the cease-fire," Farhad said.
The Governor of NWFP, Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, welcomed the militants' announcement. "Every positive step will be responded to positively. We will put their demands before the jirga to discuss them and suggest actions," Orakzai told Reuters.
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