Pakistan deal may offer Afghans hope, Britain says

ISLAMABAD, Sep 9 (Reuters) A peace deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban militants could serve as a model for neighbouring Afghanistan where the government and foreign forces are battling a resurgent Taliban, a British minister said.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's government signed the deal on Tuesday in which militants in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border agreed to stop launching attacks on Pakistani forces, and over the border in Afghanistan.

In exchange, militant prisoners were released, weapons were returned, and the army withdrew to barracks.

Critics fear the treaty could create a refuge for the Taliban and al Qaeda militants. Some analysts saw the deal as ceding control of the region to the militants.

But British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Kim Howells said today the deal, under which tribal elders would take responsibility for security, could hold out some hope.

''We'll have to see how it turns out. It's very much an experiment ... but it's got some interesting prospects,'' Howells told a news conference in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Howells said the pact was not made with the Taliban but with tribal elders. According to a copy of the document obtained by Reuters, it was struck with elders as well as ''local mujahideen and Taliban''. Mujahideen are Islamic holy warriors.

''One wonders if it could be applied to the other side of the Afghan border,'' Howells said.

British and other NATO forces have been locked in fierce fighting with the Taliban in the Afghan south.

Well over 100 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year as the Taliban stepped up a campaign to oust foreign forces backing the government of President Hamid Karzai.

Howells, who also visited Afghanistan on his trip, said the Afghan government, and British forces, wanted to win bring peace to Afghanistan by winning over the people.

The sort of agreement reached in Pakistan could help to do that.

''It's certainly worth looking at. There has to be consent among the local population if there is to be any progress made.

There can't be only a military victory, it's impossible.'' Hundreds of Pakistani troops and militants have been killed in the Waziristan region as the government has attempted to push its authority into semi-autonomous tribal lands on the Afghan border as part of efforts in the US-led war on terrorism.

Many members of the al Qaeda network and the Taliban fled to the region after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The fiercely independent ethnic Pashtun tribes that inhabit both sides of the porous border have never been brought under the control of any government, including British colonial rulers.

REUTERS PDM HS1917