Talks with the Taleban were in the interest of the country

Pak Minister Defends Talks With Taleban
Azhar Masood, Arab News

http://www.arabnews.com/

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=3D4&section=3D0&article=3D109978&d=3D17&m=3D5&=
y=3D2008

ISLAMABAD, 17 May 2008 =97 Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said
yesterday that talks with the Taleban were in the interest of the
country even as militants beheaded a Pakistani soldier to avenge a US
missile strike in the northeast.

Talks with Taleban leaders were held earlier and are being held now,
Mukhtar asserted while talking to re****ters at the PIA office in the
southern ****t city of Karachi. The minister said that if an agreement
with the Taleban materialized, it would benefit the whole world and
militant activity across the border in Afghanistan could be
controlled.

Mukhtar said Pakistan would take up the issue of the missile strike in
Bajaur with the United States after ascertaining facts. He said such
attacks inside Pakistani territory were discussed with Wa****ngton in
the past and they resulted in reducing the number of attacks.

Authorities yesterday found the body of a paramilitary soldier
beheaded by Taleban insurgents in a tribal area where Wednesday=92s
missile strike left 12 people dead. A note left on the corpse said the
soldier had been killed in revenge for the attack in Damadola village
in Bajaur tribal district near the Afghan border.

The soldier was kidnapped on Thursday night and his decapitated body
dumped on the roadside some eight kilometers from a paramilitary post
near the main town of Khar, local official Mowaz Khan said. =93This is
our revenge for the US missile attack,=94 the note signed by militant
group Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan, said.

Militants in the troubled semi-autonomous region have in the past
kidnapped and killed soldiers, officials and pro-government figures
accused of working with Americans, as part of a campaign to maintain
their stronghold.

Meanwhile, a rift in Pakistan=92s coalition government widened yesterday
after the appointment of a disputed figure to a key post in the
administration drew protests from ex-Premier Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif pulled his party=92s ministers from the Cabinet earlier this week
after the government failed to meet a pledge to restore judges ousted
under President Pervez Musharraf.

Asif Ali Zardari, who leads the largest party in the coalition, hopes
to persuade Sharif to return soon and stabilize an administration
facing huge economic problems as well as pressure from the West to
curb militancy.

But a spokesman for Sharif said yesterday that the appointment of the
new governor of Punjab province had only embittered relations between
the two erstwhile partners. =93We should have been taken into
confidence=94 before the decision on the governor****p, spokesman Sadiqul
Farooq said. =93If further steps are taken unilaterally like this, then
of course the coalition gets weaker.=94

Salman Taseer, the new governor of Punjab, was allegedly arrested and
beaten by police during Sharif=92s first government in the early 1990s
after publi****ng details of alleged corruption in the administration.

Farooq accused Taseer of using his newspapers in the past for
=93character assassination=94 against Sharif and said his party was
worried that Taseer could try to obstruct the provincial government.
Sharif=92s party won most of the seats in Punjab, the country=92s biggest
and richest province, and Sharif=92s brother is expected to take over as
its chief minister next month.

=97 With input from agencies