By our correspondent
PESHAWAR: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has welcomed the defence agreement signed in Mecca, describing it as an important development for countries across the Muslim world.
Speaking at a press conference in Peshawar, Naeem said efforts should be made to bring Iran and other countries into the agreement. He called for the pact to be developed into a stronger regional network.
Naeem said maintaining law and order in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the responsibility of the government and called for creating conditions conducive to peace. He said external plots could succeed when internal conditions were unstable.
He urged the Afghan government to prevent its territory from being used against Pakistan and called for dialogue with Kabul. He said the situation in the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was particularly difficult and noted that the National Action Plan had also included measures on employment and education.
Naeem called for disputes with Afghanistan to be resolved through mutual understanding and said work should resume on Afghan border trade to help address outstanding issues. Turning to fuel prices, he said petrol remained excessively expensive and criticized the government for failing to reduce prices even after the end of the war.
Naeem accused the government of earning substantial revenue through the petroleum development levy and alleged that the levy was being used to conceal corruption. He said incompetence and corruption had reached alarming levels and called for protests against what he described as the IPP “mafia”.
Ji leader announced that Jamaat-i-Islami would hold simultaneous sit-ins in all four provinces on 16 August, with demonstrations planned outside the chief minister’s residence in Punjab and the governor houses in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
