- Senator Dar says Pakistan needs united, resolute response to tackle terror
- PPP demands some assurances, as govt wants consensus through dialogue
All parliamentary leaders of the political parties will meet here today (Monday) at the Parliament House in a bid to evolve consensus over the legislation for providing legal cover to the military courts for another two years.
The meeting, to be chaired by National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq, may prove to be the last huddle as almost majority of the political parties have agreed on the federal government’s bill. However, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) needs some assurances which might be given as the government also wants across the board consensus over the legislation for the military courts.
In a statement on Sunday, Federal Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar said that the government, on March 10, tabled in the National Assembly bills for constitutional and army act amendments relating to the subject of the military courts.
He said that the drafts of the bills were agreed upon on February 28 in a meeting, chaired by the speaker and attended by parliamentary leaders of all the parties. However, some amendments to the proposed bills have subsequently been suggested by the Pakistan People’s Party and some others, he said.
In order to discuss these proposals and to develop consensus of all political parties on the military courts, the speaker has convened, on the request of the government, a meeting of all the parliamentary parties’ leaders in the Senate and the National Assembly on Monday (March 13).
A source privy to the ongoing backchannel dialogue between the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N and the PPP told Pakistan Today that the major political party had withdrawn most of its demands from its 9-point charter presented last week. The PPP had suffered a major setback after its All Parties Conference (APC) and now decided to come up with its own demands, it said.
However, the PPP has already conveyed to the federal government that it is ready to withdraw most of its demands if the government gives it some other assurances, the source said. Asked which demands the PPP was ready to withdraw, the source said that the opposition party was ready to show flexibility on its demand for cutting the timeframe of the military courts.
“The PPP is ready to agree to the two-year timeframe for the courts. However, it wants a clear cut assurance from the prime minister that the military would not try politicians in these courts the way Dr Asim Hussain was arrested during the security operation,” the source added. The PPP leadership was also apprehensive by the fact that corruption must not be linked to terrorism.
Under the current circumstances, “our nation is looking for a united, coherent and resolute response by the political parties to effectively tackle the menace of terrorism,” Senator Dar said. In the last few years, the political parties have developed a culture of consensus through dialogue on issues of national importance, he said.
All the political parties have demonstrated that they can rise above party politics for a national cause, he said, and hoped that in the meeting, all the political parties would, once again, demonstrate unity and resolve to effectively deal with the challenge of terrorism.
FAST-TRACK TRIAL: Federal Minister for Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastgir told a private news channel that the civil and the military leadership were united to eliminate terrorism. He said steps taken by the government were giving positive results as terror incidents had reduced.
The Counter-Terrorism Department had been made functional in all the four provinces. Many reforms were made in the legal system to counter terrorism while cyber law was legislated to control hate and terror content, the minister said. He also said that extension in the military courts’ mandate was a temporary measure for fast-track trial of terror cases.
