LANDI KOTAL, Jan 20: MNA Hamidullah Jan Afridi has said that he will convene an All-Fata Jirga to take stock of the prevailing situation and suggest ways to restore lasting peace in tribal areas.

“The intention is not to undermine or overshadow the 22-member jirga, which was formed after the killing of 18 innocent tribesmen in Bara,” he told Dawn after meeting scores of elders of various tribes of Khyber Agency on Sunday.

The 22-member jirga from Bara will meet Khyber Agency political administration on Monday in pursuance of its demands relating to the three and half years military operation in Bara.

Mr Afridi said that the elders urged him to convene a jirga of all the major tribes of Fata to find a solution to the existing situation in tribal areas.

He said that Bara jirga was formed to negotiate with the government about an end to the military operation in Bara and formation of a judicial commission to investigate independently the killing of innocent people of Bara alongside an end to artillery shelling on houses of tribal people.

The MNA said that the jirga would apprise the president, prime minister and chief of the army staff of the current situation in Fata and try to devise ways and means to bring peace in the entire tribal areas.

Mr Afridi said that it was time that tribal people, irrespective of their political and tribal affiliations, shun their differences and work for the formation of a joint movement to steer Fata out of the present crises.