The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister appears to be making peculiar choices. He initially declared, without a mandate, that he wished to have direct talks with Afghanistan. To achieve this, he also summoned two Peshawar Consulate officials for political points scoring. However, these officials were later informed in Islamabad and Kabul that this is not the domain of the provincial government.
It was being discussed that the Chief Minister again invited the same two diplomats to an important event and saw to their etiquettes that they did not even bother to stand during Pakistan’s national anthem in the presence of their host, flouting diplomatic decorum. Ironically, the Chief Minister and his party, instead of fighting the country’s case, started advocating and interpreting Afghan diplomats.
There was a robust response nationwide the following day. Two more contentious pronouncements were made by the Chief Minister on the same day. Not only are checkposts being removed in numerous locations. Instead, actions are being launched to revive and bring the Jirga system back online.
In a war-torn province, the question is if the chief minister even confers with some other important stakeholders before making such “experiments and announcements”? The response is “no.” since there is a bad relationship between the federal government and the Chief Minister. Not with the military institution, not with the governor. Such choices will not only negatively affect how the forces operate. Rather, confusion will also afflict the civil bureaucracy. The Chief Minister must act responsibly in light of all of this, and it is necessary to use the Provincial Apex Committee platform for choices such as these. Joking around with the province’s security concerns and issues will have greater detrimental effects.