Washington - The United States on Thursday expressed concern to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari that a deal allowing Sharia law in the volatile Swat valley amounted to a possible capitulation to Taliban militants.
US envoy Richard Holbrooke told CNN in an interview on Thursday afternoon that he had spoken with Zardari by phone just hours earlier and expressed his "concern".
"It is hard to understand this deal in Swat," in the country's northwest, said Holbrooke, who returned this week from a regional tour that included visits to Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
The agreement this week in Pakistan's Malakand area, which includes the Swat valley, has been widely seen as a government concession to Taliban Islamic militants to secure a ceasefire.
"I am concerned, and I know Secretary (Hillary) Clinton is, and the president is, that this deal, which is portrayed in the press as a truce, does not turn into a surrender," Holbrooke said. "President Zardari has assured us it is not the case."
The Pakistan president has described the deal as "an interim arrangement", said the US diplomat.
"He does not disagree that people who are running Swat now are murderers, thugs and militants and they pose a danger not only to Pakistan but to the US as well."
Last year, Pakistani forces launched an offensive to recapture the Swat valley from Taliban forces but the area remains restive.
Pakistan has hailed the agreement as the best way to defuse a bloody insurgency in the violence-wracked northwest, but Islamist hardliners have yet to disarm and it has provoked alarm in Nato as well as in neighbouring Afghanistan and India.
Islamists have vowed to put down their guns once Islamic justice is established.
Source: News24 .Com