Pakhtuns not Taliban sympathisers: ANP

  Pakhtuns not Taliban sympathisers: ANP PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party has slammed Prime Minister Imran Khan for referring to Pakhtuns ...

 

Pakhtuns not Taliban sympathisers: ANP

PESHAWAR:The Awami National Party has slammed Prime Minister Imran Khan for referring to Pakhtuns as Taliban sympathisers in his UN General Assembly speech.

In a statement issued here on Monday, ANP central general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain said the prime minister had perverted history by claiming that Pakhtuns were Taliban sympathisers.

“We are Pakhtuns, and we have never been terrorists or Taliban sympathisers,” he said, adding that associating Pakhtuns with such individuals was distorting their past. He claimed that the sacrifices made by Pakhtuns in the fight against terrorism were documented in history.

According to Mr Hussain, around 80,000 individuals died in the war against terrorism, the majority of whom were Pakhtuns, including 144 students from Army Public School Peshawar. Terrorists, he continued, had not only killed people but also damaged houses of worship, historical structures, hujras, and bazaars.

According to the ANP leader, the conflict was foisted on the Pakhtuns, who had suffered the most over the previous 40 years. He claimed that in Malakand division, nationalist Pakhtuns negotiated agreements with terrorists, but that the terrorists broke the agreements and the entire area was rid of them.

Mr Hussain said that his only son was martyred as a result of the anti-terrorist operation. He urged Imran Khan to refrain from distorting historical truths and injuring Pakhtun feelings.

He claimed that numerous ethnic groups, including Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, and Arabs, were active in the Taliban ranks and that Pakhtuns should not be associated with them.

He claimed that the ANP had resisted terrorism from the beginning and had suffered the repercussions as a result.

Taliban labourers and leaders were slain in specific operations from Khyber to Quetta, he claimed.

He stated that his party was committed to Bacha Khan's nonviolence principle and will continue to oppose terrorism in all forms.