PTI had contacts with banned TTP, two foreign policies cannot run in one country: Tarar

ISLAMABAD (Atemad Desk): Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has said that two foreign policies cannot run in one country. He said it could not be that the federal government demanded that Afghanistan stop terrorism while a provincial government ran its own separate policy. According to him, the PTI had contacts with the banned TTP.

Briefing the foreign media in Islamabad along with Federal Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar, he said the law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had become extremely bad and the system of governance had collapsed. He said the provincial government created a rift by not holding meetings of the apex committees, and the chief minister rejected the consensus reached against terrorism.

Attaullah Tarar said politics, terrorism and crime were linked to one another in the province. He said complaints of cross-border smuggling of minerals, timber, tobacco, gold and precious stones kept coming in, but the failure to act against it raised questions about provincial governance. According to him, there were also confirmed reports of terrorists’ influence in the southern districts.

He said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was given about Rs800 billion under the National Finance Commission award. The question, he said, was why these resources were not spent on the counter-terrorism department, safe city cameras, a forensic laboratory and modern police equipment. According to him, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police were making sacrifices on the front line but were not given proper training and resources.

The federal minister said an Area Representative and Development Council was being set up for 12 districts of the province. Its structure would consist of a chairman, a vice chairman, members and a spokesperson.