LAHORE, Oct 24: Participants of a multi-party conference here on Monday pledged to offer every sacrifice for the defence of the country, demanding unequivocal refusal by the government to conduct army action in North Waziristan.

Around 60 religious and political parties and prominent individuals, including those representing minorities and tribal areas, attended the conference that was not attended by most of the mainstream parties.

The participants lamented the government failure to implement resolutions passed by the parliament and the recently held All-Party Conference (APC).

It demanded the government should declare in clear terms that no army operation would be conducted in the North Waziristan and US drones violating Pakistan’s airspace would be shot down.

It also called upon the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice of drone attacks, alleging the US was using chemical weapons against unarmed civilians.

The conference opposed Most Favourite Nation (MFN) status for India and called for ‘open support’ to the freedom movement in occupied Kashmir.

Regretting at the absence of most of the mainstream political parties including the PPP, PML-N, PML-F, PTI, MQM and ANP from the conference, the participants said it reflected the ‘intentions’ of these parties. The conference was presided over by the JUI-S chief Maulana Samiul Haq while prominent among the participants were JI’s Munawwar Hasan, Jamaatud Dawa’s Prof Saeed, PML-Q’s Chaudhry Zaheer, Gen (retired) Hameed Gul, AML’s Sheikh Rashid, PML-Z’ Ijazul Haq, Ayatollah Najfi, Pastor Ibrah Deniel, Sirdar Sham Singh, MQM-H’s Shamshad Ghauri, Gen (retired) Muhammad Shafiq, and Ajmal Wazir from Waziristan.