ISLAMABAD, Feb 22: The government proposed to a distrusting opposition in the National Assembly on Thursday to broker a new peace deal in the militancy-plagued Waziristan tribal area after coming under fire for two days during a law and order debate.

While a major opposition party continued its partial boycott of the proceedings for the third day over violence during recent by-elections for a National Assembly seat and a provincial assembly seat in Sindh, others offered cooperation for peace in general but avoided a specific response to the government proposal made by Minister of State for Interior Zafar Iqbal Warraich.

In what seemed to be an admission that the two previous peace deals in North Waziristan and South Waziristan had not worked well, Mr Warraich referred to continued militancy in the region bordering Afghanistan and asked leaders of opposition parties to go there to negotiate peace with militants, who are accused of both fighting Pakistani forces and harbouring foreign militants fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan.

“If (after these negotiations) you announce on television that foreigners have left the area and they (militants) have surrendered weapons, not a single shot will be fired,” the minister of state said.

He particularly mentioned the names of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal president Qazi Hussain Ahmad, opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman and People’s Party Parliamentarians president Makhdoom Amin Fahim for such a mission and said: “If they give this guarantee, nobody will fire a shot there.”

The government’s offer to the opposition came amid increasing doubts voiced by US officials about the success of its previous deals, the first of which – known as “Shakai agreement” was reached with tribal militants in South Waziristan in 2005 and the latest in North Waziristan in September last year.

Mr Warraich said the government had also tried its best to make peace with non-conformist tribal sardars in Balochistan, including the efforts of a parliamentary committee, but added that “it proved of no use” forcing authorities to undo what he said had become “a state within a state”.

However, the minister made no offer to the opposition over Balochistan, which an opposition member, Tehmina Daultana of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, said was “slipping away from our hands” as she condemned the killing of former provincial chief minister Nawab Akbar Bugti in a military operation in August and the arrests and trials of what she called 22 Baloch leaders.

But Mr Warraich said whatever step was taken by the government was meant for Pakistan’s betterment and added: “We are prepared for talks but not at gunpoint, and here, not in caves.”

Referring to the condemnation of suicide bombings by several opposition members, he proposed that the house pass a resolution saying that death through a suicide attack was “haram” (forbidden) in Islam. But no resolution was moved despite support from Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain for what he called “a good suggestion”.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who spoke after Mr Warraich, and PML-N parliamentary leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who addressed the house earlier, called for a review of the government’s policies as an ally in the US-led so-called war on terrorism and said the opposition was ready to cooperate in the interest of the country despite differences with the government on other issues.

“I think we have to review our policy and get out of the international alliance,” the opposition leader said.

“We are ready for any cooperation for the security and solidarity of the country,” he said, urging the government to take elected representatives of the people into confidence rather than what he called framing policies in the GHQ.

Chaudhry Nisar proposed the convening of a multi-party meeting for a review of policies, while another MMA leader, Liaqat Baloch, called for the formation of a joint committee on law and order.

The government pushed through another bill – Alternative Energy Development Board Bill – through an apparently quorum-less house without any debate after all PML-N and MMA members had walked out to join a PML-N workers’ demonstration outside the parliament house to protest against disappearances of political activists blamed on security agency.

The PPP had walked out earlier to continue its post-question hour boycott of the proceedings for the third day to protest against non-registration of an FIR by police in the Jamshoro district about a Feb 10 gunfire at the bullet-proof car of PPP member Azra Fazal Pechuho, a sister-in-law of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The bill passed is designed to establish an Alternative Energy Development Board as an autonomous body for what it called the implementation of policies, programmes and projects in the field of alternative or renewable energy technologies.

It said the board would assist and facilitate the development and generation of alternative or renewable energy “in order to achieve sustainable economic growth with transfer of technology for development of an indigenous technological base through a diversified energy generation”.

A back-bencher of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, Ali Akbar Vaince, created a stir in the house before its adjournment until 9am on Friday by suggesting that President Gen Pervez Musharraf should better be asked to dissolve the assembly rather than always begging the opposition not to point out the lack of quorum to save the house from premature adjournments despite a comfortable majority of the ruling coalition.

He made the remarks after the speaker and the ruling party chief whip Nasrullah Khan Dreshak persuaded a PPP member, Zulfikar Gondal, who returned to the house to point out a lack of quorum during the second reading of the Alternative Energy Development Board Bill.

“We must be ashamed of this. We such a big majority and we have to beg the opposition not to point out the lack of quorum,” Mr Vaince said.

He said absenteeism by ruling coalition members would only prove that the present system had failed, and added: “Then why should we not ask President Musharraf to pack it up because we are fed up and we are not used to completing five years (of the assembly’s term).”