Pakistan mosque cleric agrees to talks - PM UPDATE |
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Published
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Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:12
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(Updating with further detail)LONDON (Thomson Financial) - A Pakistani cleric under siege in his mosque agreed to hold crunch talks Monday with ministers and Islamic leaders via loudspeaker in a bid to end the crisis, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said.A seven-member negotiating team headed by former premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain will try to persuade Abdul Rashid Ghazi to surrender and to free women and children inside Islamabad's Red Mosque, Aziz told reporters.'The team will negotiate through a speaker system so that all team members can hear whatever Ghazi says,' Aziz said.'We are not sending any negotiating team inside the mosque as they are unpredictable people and have have also taken six parents as hostage,' Aziz added.Yesterday Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf told Islamists besieged at an Islamabad mosque to surrender or face being killed.Hardline students holed up inside the Red Mosque for the past five days are holding women and children as human shields. Fighting intensified at the mosque on Saturday with troops blowing up the complex's petrol tank during an assault.The cleric leading the resistance, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said Pakistani forces had killed 30 female and 40 male students in the siege. The women were buried at the site, he said.The government says the toll is 19, including a soldier and several civilians.The mullah said he and his followers had enough rations, arms and ammunition inside the compound to 'fight for another 25 to 30 days and we will do that, God willing.'tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.comejp/ejpCOPYRIGHTCopyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.
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Pakistan mosque cleric agrees to talks - PM 