Tribal elder Malik Mamoor Khan told Daily Times after meeting NWFP Governor Ali Jan Orakzai on Saturday that no elders would participate in the Pak-Afghan jirga starting from August 9 in Kabul if security forces were not withdrawn from all checkposts in North Waziristan.The Ahmedzai Wazir tribes in South Waziristan have already boycotted the jirga, stating that it was useless to talk to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the presence of “US occupational forces” in Afghanistan. “We cannot stop fighting in our own area, how can we do it for Afghanistan?” Malik argued. The government was told about the boycott, he said, but denied that the boycott was a result of “Taliban threats”. Around 50 delegates from North and South Waziristan were nominated for the 700-strong jirga. It will be inaugurated by President Pervez Musharraf and President Hamid Karzai and will take up a seven-point agenda, with decisions to be implemented by a permanent commission at the end.
Akhtar Amin adds: Participants at a national jirga organised by the Pakistan NGOs Forum said that the Pak-Afghan Jirga would fail without the participation of Taliban representatives, and unless Pakistan stopped “interfering in Afghanistan’s internal matters”. “The Pak-Afghan jirga is not independent, nor does it have sufficient representatives,” they said.