Surrender. “Pakistani authorities, militants agree peace deal for insurgency-torn valley,” from The Associated Press, May 21 :
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Pakistan’s new government signed a peace deal Wednesday with Islamic militants in a valley of northwestern Pakistan, in a process that Western officials worry could take the pressure off Taliban and al-Qaida hardliners.
The agreement covers Swat, a former tourist destination 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the capital, Islamabad, where followers of a fundamentalist cleric have been battling security forces for almost a year.
But in a sign that the accord could be tough to enforce, suspected militants shot dead a policeman at a checkpoint in the valley on Tuesday, the army said.
The 15-point plan was announced Wednesday after the latest in a series of negotiations between the two sides in the regional capital, Peshawar.
Bashir Bilour, a senior minister in the government of North West Frontier Province, said the militants agreed to recognize the government’s authority, halt suicide and bomb attacks and hand over any foreign militants in the area.
In return, the government will release an unspecified number of prisoners and make limited concessions on the demands of the cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, for the imposition of Islamic law in the region, he said.
Bilour also said the army would withdraw “gradually” from the area. […]
Information Minister Sherry Rehman insisted Wednesday that the government was “negotiating with peaceful representative groups, not with terrorists.”
But Western officials have expressed concern that any deals would be poorly enforced and would simply allow Taliban and al-Qaida militants to execute more attacks in Afghanistan and plot terror strikes in the West.
Pakistani officials “say they don’t want to give free space to extremist elements … But I think this is something we’re going to have to watch very carefully,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told senators in Washington on Tuesday….