PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) Central General Secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain has termed the new American policy for South Asia disastrous for the region, especially the Pashtun belt, and said it would further prolong the war instead of restoration of peace.
Addressing as a chief guest at book launching ceremony at Peshawar Press Club here on Wednesday, he said Pashtun on both sides of the border have been caught in war for the last 35 years, and there seems no end to the war in near future. He said China should play a role as the guarantor for peace in the region, and the new policy should be based on taking all the stakeholders into confidence while seeking solution to the problem of militancy in Afghanistan. It was unfortunate that Pashtun are being ignored in policymaking but wars are fought on their soil, he said, adding the decades long war badly affected Pashtun economically, socially, politically, as well as hitting their education and literature.
He said Mashaaloona, a Pashto language book consisting of profiles of great nationalist leaders and prominent personalities of the freedom movement during the British era, was a great contribution. “It was unfortunate that very few of our Pashtun read Pashto language books, but the book in hand would provide an opportunity to the young generation to know about the life and struggle of their heroes,” he said. He lauded the role of Mashaal Radio for compiling such a worthy contribution.
Prof Abaseen Yusufzai, Dr Said Alam Mehsud and Dr Muhammad Sohail also spoke and lauded the collection.
The 2001-page collection shed light on the life and struggle of about two dozen freedom fighters right from Khan Abdul Wali Khan aka Bacha Khan, Maulana Fazal Mehmood Makhfi, Ajamal Khattak, Qalandar Momand, Saida Bushra Begum, Abdul Aziz Kaka, Master Abdul Karim, Prof Jehanzeb Niaz and Meer Mehdi Shah Bacha. Basically a compilation from programmes of Mashaal Radio the collection is aimed to abreast the young generation of the heroic struggle of their forefathers against the imperialist forces.