By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Pressure is mounting on Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari to sign the peace deal implementing Islamic law in North West Frontier Province's Malakand region, which encompasses the troubled Swat valley.
The hardline Muslim cleric Sufi Mohammad, who has mediated peace talks between Pakistan and the Taliban in Swat has refused to hold direct talks with the government until Zardari signs the accord.
Mohammad earlier this week abandoned his peace camp, installed to oversee the peace, following the historical accord signed in mid-February between militants and the NWFP government and went back to his village.
He is chief of the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi group in Swat.
Mohammad last month signalled he was unhappy at what he calls the slow pace of implementation of the peace accord and complained that un-Islamic' laws were still in force in Malakand.
But interior minstry chief Rehman Malik played down the situation. “Maulana Sufi Mohammad did not back out from the Swat deal. He simply has changed his location," Malik told journalists in Islamabad on Thursday.
"The president will sign the Nizam-e-Adal (Islamic law) regulation but he is waiting for militants to lay down their weapons completely,” Malik said. Read more ...
Pressure is mounting on Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari to sign the peace deal implementing Islamic law in North West Frontier Province's Malakand region, which encompasses the troubled Swat valley.
The hardline Muslim cleric Sufi Mohammad, who has mediated peace talks between Pakistan and the Taliban in Swat has refused to hold direct talks with the government until Zardari signs the accord.
Mohammad earlier this week abandoned his peace camp, installed to oversee the peace, following the historical accord signed in mid-February between militants and the NWFP government and went back to his village.
He is chief of the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi group in Swat.
Mohammad last month signalled he was unhappy at what he calls the slow pace of implementation of the peace accord and complained that un-Islamic' laws were still in force in Malakand.
But interior minstry chief Rehman Malik played down the situation. “Maulana Sufi Mohammad did not back out from the Swat deal. He simply has changed his location," Malik told journalists in Islamabad on Thursday.
"The president will sign the Nizam-e-Adal (Islamic law) regulation but he is waiting for militants to lay down their weapons completely,” Malik said. Read more ...
Source: AKI
H/T: Jihad Watch
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