Pakistan denies 'concession' in deal with militants

One of the problems with Pakistan , is that they are Ignorant of what they do !
If they do not think that what they have done is a "Concession" then they are truly done as a country !
What else do you call giving the bad guys everything they want ?
And this whole "Peace camp" thing , what a joke ! somehow I don't see the Taliban leaders sitting around the campfire singing hippie folk tunes when all this is over ! It seems as likely as the "Laying down" of their weapons once sharia law is fully implemented !

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan denied Tuesday making concessions to militants after signing a deal allowing them to impose Islamic law in an area where government troops have failed to put down a bloody insurgency.

The United States, which puts South Asia on the frontline of the "war on terror," has branded extremists in northwest Pakistan a direct threat to the country, neighbouring Afghanistan, US security and other powers.

Analysts have derided the deal as a defeat that will embolden Islamists in the violent, nuclear-armed Muslim nation, but the government and pro-Taliban cleric Soofi Mohammad, who signed the deal, hailed it as a chance for peace.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman denied it was a "concession."

"It is in no way a sign of the state's weakness. The public will of the population of the Swat region is at the centre of all efforts and it should be taken into account while debating the merits of this agreement," she said.

The government hopes that Islamist hardliners will now disarm in the Swat valley, where the deal will be implemented, and Rehman insisted President Asif Ali Zardari will only validate the agreement after peace has been restored.

....

"The president will approve the Nizam-e-Adal Regulation after the restoration of peace in the region," she said.

Radical leader Maulana Fazlullah has waged a nearly two-year campaign to enforce Taliban-style sharia law in the northwest Swat Valley, once a ski resort once popular with Westerners.

Thousands of his followers have beheaded opponents, silenced detractors, bombed schools and outlawed entertainment, forcing tens of thousands to flee and trapping a poorly-equipped government military into an apparently unwinnable conflict.

On Monday, the government signed a deal with his father-in-law, considered more moderate, that accepts Islamic law as the only system of justice in the Malakand district, home to three million and of which Swat is part.

"He will set up a peace camp in Mingora and hold talks with Taliban to disarm them and establish peace in the region," the cleric's spokesman, Amir Izzat, told AFP after Mohammad set out for the capital of Swat.

Bye,Bye Pakistan !