ISLAMABAD, April 14, Reuter: Pakistan has hailed an Afghan settlement to be signed on Thursday as a triumph for world peace but reiterated its view that Moslem guerrillas must eventually take a share of power in Kabul.
“The Afghan peace accord represents the finest example of the triumph of the cause of world peace and security,” Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo said in a television speech on Wednesday evening.
“When faith is alive, even unequipped Mujahideen can successfully fight the biggest of the big,” he said in a salute to the Afghan guerrillas’ nine year old campaign against the Soviet backed Kabul government.
Pakistan and Afghanis are due to sign an accord in Geneva providing for the withdrawal of an estimated 115,000 Soviet troops and a return of five million refugees.
Moscow sent in troops in 1979 to shore up a weak Marxist government.
The agreement makes no provision for a new administration but Junejo said U.N. mediated talks on a “broad based” interim of the accord. He did not say who would take part in the negotiations.
Islamabad acknowledges it funnels arms to the guerrillas but denies Soviet charges that it allows them training camps and arms dumps on its territory. :
It says these are refugee camps and guerrillas based in them are banned from openly carrying guns.
Political analysts said that now an agreement had been signed Zia would come under increasing pressure from the opposition to end support for the guerrillas because of fears of retaliatory violence from Kabul.
About half of Pakistan’s Afghan refugee camps are in lightly governed tribal districts near the border where Soviet planes and artillery have repeatedly attacked suspected bases. Pakistanis as well as Afghans have been killed.
Pakistan also accused Kabul of paying agents to plant booby trap bombs in its towns. Kabul denies the charges.
Zia said Pakistan was prepared to pay the price of “arm twisting and border bombings” to support the guerrillas,
His remarks on the agreement included a tribute to the guerrillas’ anti-Communist campaign and the deaths of an estimated million Afghans in the war. “It is a super human sacrifice”, he said.
The accord signed by Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union and the United States is aimed at creating conditions for peace by securing a Soviet withdrawal and an end to outside interference.
It does not provide for a ceasefire. The guerrillas, who refused any direct part in the U.N. mediated agreement, on Thursday condemned its signing and vowed to continue the war until refugees felt they could return in safety.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of an alliance of the seven main Pakistani based guerrilla parties, said any accord made without the coalition’s participation would be unacceptable to the five million refugees in Iran and Pakistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 22, 1988