Pak politicians condemn attacks on Afghan villages

ISLAMABAD (PAN from Pakistani soil, saying such incidents could further damage relations between the two countries.

For the past two weeks, Pakistani forces have been firing mortar shells into Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. Dozens of people have been killed and wounded in the attacks.

“It is a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty, and such attacks should not happen because it spoils good relations between the two countries,” said Mukhtiyar Yousafzsai, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa president of the Awami National Party (ANP). Denouncing the attacks, he said that only Pashtuns were being killed.

He said that Pakistan would come under more foreign pressure if it continued to carry out such attacks.

Another Pashtun nationalist leader, Afzal Khan Lala, said the ongoing conflict was not only affecting Pakistan and Afghanistan, but threatening the stability of the entire region.

Lala said Pashtuns lived on both sides of the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. “Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan are not happy with the situation,” he said.

He said the situation could only return to normalcy if Pakistan, India and Afghanistan stopped interfering into each other’s affairs.

Fariq Topan, a Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader, said Pakistan considered Afghanistan its fifth province and that the situation would not improve until Pakistan changed this mindset.

Topan, too, condemned the cross border attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

“On the one hand, both countries talk of friendly ties and being good neighbours, but on the other innocent people are being killed in Dir, Bajaur, Kunar and Nuristan,” he said, saying Pakistan’s two-faced policy had created the situation on the border.

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