ANP, 'N' teams reduce options

ISLAMABAD The special committees set up by the PML-N and ANP to recommend consensus name for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) made significant progress in their first meeting here at the Punjab House on Wednesday.
We have narrowed options towards a consensus name and would resume deliberations after consulting our respective parties leadership, Chairman of PML-Ns five-member committee and former federal minister Sartaj Aziz told TheNation. Senator Haji Adeel led the ANP team.
Sartaj Aziz said both sides discussed each others proposals with an open mind in a friendly atmosphere and were successful in narrowing the options. The ANP team would revert back to the party high command for further guidance about the potential options emerged in the meeting while the PML-N team will have to wait until the party Quaid Mian Nawaz Sharif returns from China.
Sources privy to these developments informed that ANP team had dished out three names including Pakhtoonkhawa, Pushtoonistan and Afghania, while the PML-N side proposed equal number of names including Khyber and Abaseen.
Renaming NWFP has appeared as the most critical political issue after the ANP agreed power-sharing deal with the PPP on the condition that the latter would support ANPs demand about renaming NWFP.
The renaming of NWFP issue had assumed more political significance after the ANP insisted for acceptance of its demand in the series of deliberations of the Parliamentary Constitutional Reforms Committee headed by Senator Mian Raza Rabbani.
Earlier, the parliamentary body while revisiting the Constitution has deferred the Article related to the autonomy of the provinces until the issue between ANP and PML-N is resolved. PML-N leadership is of the view that there should be a consensus name, which reflects feelings and aspirations of ethnic communities other than majority Pushtoon population living in the NWFP.