A 21-member peace committee from the Mehsud tribe met senior commanders of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan on Friday to discuss the four points the government wanted to take up with a Taliban leader, Senator Saleh Shah said.The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal senator from South Waziristan said the peace committee returned from the meeting with Maulana Noor Syed, Mufti Noor Wali and Maulana Azmatullah since Baitullah Mehsud himself did not turn up. “The committee members discussed the presence of foreign nationals in the area, the damages to state property, the maintenance of order and cross-border movement,” Senator Shah told Daily Times.
A senior government official said the government had asked that these issues be addressed by Baitullah. Asked why Baitullah did not meet the peace committee members, Senator Shah said he was ‘busy’ and could not reach the meeting point. Baitullah’s senior commanders told the peace committee that the government should pin point where they suspected foreign nationals were living. “We do not host foreigners,” they said. “We should not be blamed for cross-border insurgency by others because the same tribe’s people live on both sides of the border,” the commanders said when accused of violating the September 5 peace accord with militants in North Waziristan.
The meeting was the second such meeting between government representatives and pro-Taliban commanders in the past 30 days .
Senator Shah said the committee members would meet senior administration officials of South Waziristan before calling on the NWFP governor, Ali Jan Aurakzai, who warned Baitullah Mehsud against attacks on state installations, sheltering foreign terrorists and crossing the border into Afghanistan.