Central president Awami National Party (ANP) Asfandyar Wali Khan has said on Monday that he was ready to offer himself to Taliban for killing if they provided a guarantee that they would stop bloodshed after that.
Speaking in the National Assembly, he said that he was ready to be killed by Taliban anywhere they want. But for this, the Taliban would give a guarantee that they would stop bloodshed in the province.
The ANP leader's remarks came after a long hibernation of ANP leadership that mainly avoided making any public statement against the Taliban despite the fact the party has been the prime target of the Taliban activities.
Asfandyar regretted that Swat situation was not like what this government had wanted to be. He said, "The real problem was started when we refused to accept the deadline given to the ANP-led NWFP government by Baitullah Mehsud," - who claimed to be the actual leader of Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP)," he said.
He informed the National Assembly that this was the real issue. He said that when the provincial government was negotiating a deal, we inquired with them that whether agreement would be considered either with TTP or with Tehrik Taliban Swat (TTS).
We had informed the Taliban leadership that brokering a peace deal with TTP was not in the domain of the provincial government because TTP was and is largely based in Fata, which is under the administrative control of the federal government. We were informed that the peace deal will be between TTS and the provincial government, he said.
After refusal of the provincial government to resign as demanded by Baitullah Mehsud, the TTS created troubles again. That is the main reason that the situation in Swat is not improving, he said.
Meanwhile, some members of the PML-N belonging to District Hazara lodged a strong protest over the remarks of senior NWFP minister Bashir Bilour allegedly against the people of Hazara division over their opposition to rename the NWFP as Pukhtunkhwah. MNAs Javed Abbasi, Captain Muhammad Safdar (Retd) of the PML-N said that the ANP was on the agenda of dividing the province on linguistic basis.
Captain Safdar, the son in law of PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif, said that his party would not accept Pukhtunkhwah as the new name of the NWFP unless it is approved by the parliament with two/thirds majority.
Mentioning NWFP as Pukhtunkhwah is unconstitutional, said Safdar as some of the MNAs were showing the press cuttings of alleged remarks to the ministers who were there in the opposition benches to cool down the charged atmosphere. However, Asfandyar Wali Khan timely apology for the alleged remarks of the minister cooled down the temperature.
Later when the minister for railways Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour was allowed to speak, he said that he did not understand why was Captain Safdar opposing the renaming of the province. He must know that Nawaz Sharif has accepted this demand of the ANP when he met the late Abdul Wali Khan in Charsadda in 1997. The PML-N leaders Mehtab Abbasi and Sartaj Aziz are witnesses of this, he added.