PM Nawaz to chair crucial cabinet meeting to discuss FATA reforms today

ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will preside over a crucial federal cabinet meeting in Islamabad today (Thursday). According to sources, the report on FATA reforms drafted by Sartaj Aziz would be presented during the meeting and the attendees would also discuss the merger of FATA into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Mr Aziz would brief Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and cabinet members on the reforms report. The document was made public last year and is still awaiting approval from the cabinet. It is pertinent to mention here that the elected representatives from FATA were demanding that the government should finalise the merger of FATA into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, however, FATA’s merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa seems unlikely. Major political parties and FATA parliamentarians have announced holding a rally outside the Parliament House on March 12 to register a protest against the delay in the approval of the committee report. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan had also called for early merger of federally-administered tribal areas (FATA) into KPK  to effectively weed out the terrorism. “If we want take full benefit from Zarb-e-Azb and National Action Plan, there is need to speed up the process of FATA’s merger into KP,” he highlighted last month.