ISLAMABAD : Pakistan on Tuesday defended a deal with pro-Taliban tribals in North Waziristan saying it would end cross-border militancy in Afghanistan and violators would be dealt with firmly, both by the local jirga and the Government.

Under the September 5 agreement, the Government has agreed to end military operations in North Waziristan to flush out Al-Qaeda militants, other foreigners and Taliban and their supporters. It has released those it arrested during operations, dropped charges, returned weapons and withdrawn the Army from checkpoints established over the last two years.

In return, the tribesmen have assured that there will be no cross-border militancy in Afghanistan. They will ask all foreigners to leave, and those unable to leave can stay on provided they agree to live peacefully and abide by local laws and the terms of the agreement.

Doubts over deal

The deal has raised doubts about how it will be implemented, and whether it can indeed end cross-border militancy in Afghanistan and support from this area to the Taliban-fighting Kabul.

"The implementation is in-built, in that the tribesmen are responsible for any violations, and if violations take place, the jirga can take action against that individual or group by itself, or it can ask the Government to take action," said Lt. Gen. Jan Aurakzai, (retired) Governor of the North West Frontier Province, at a specially arranged press conference for foreign journalists.

`Enormous powers'

The political agent — the Governor's representative in the tribal region — had "enormous powers," Lt. Gen. Aurakzai said.

The Government, he said, could take recourse to the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), a 1901 law for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of which North Waziristan is a part.

Under the FCR, a jirga tries a person accused of a crime and recommends action — punishment or acquittal — to the political agent, who may or may not accept the recommendations. He can impose punishments that include fines and imprisonment.

If there was a violation of the agreement, "we will address that violation and make an example of that person," the Governor said to repeated questions about how the agreement would be enforced.

No exact count

He said while there was no exact count of foreigners still in the area, of about a 1,000 estimated foreigners at the time the operations began, about 700 had either been killed or apprehended.

Denial

Lt. Gen. Aurakzai denied that the Army had pulled out of the area, and said it had vacated only 12 checkpoints, handing them over to the local police.

The 250 troops withdrawn from the checkpoints were now deployed at the border and the "crossings are under constant monitoring."

Clarification on pact

The agreement applied to everybody in North Waziristan, local tribesmen as well as foreigners, including Afghan Taliban.

The provision allowing foreigners to stay if they lived peacefully did not apply to a list of "high-value targets" of the war against terror such as Osama bin Laden, he clarified.

Lt. Gen Aurakzai, who is reported to have played a crucial role in arriving at the North Waziristan deal, denied the agreement was between militants or Taliban and the Government.

He said the Government had signed the deal with "14 local elders," and it was "countersigned by the 45-member jirga" that had brokered the agreement, and that was drawn from the entire FATA.

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