QUETTA - National Party (NP) Central General Secretary Tahir Bezinjo has said that the sloganeering for a Pakhtun province in Balochistan was merely political point-scoring. “Creating differences between two brotherly ethnicities is unwise”.
Addressing a press conference at the Quetta Press Club on Wednesday, Bezinjo said that historically Pakhtun areas of Balochistan had never remained part of Balochistan, thus Pakhtun brothers were free to decide their future.  “If the Pakhtuns want their separate province or voluntary become part of Khyber Pakhtunkwa, we have no objection over it,” the NP leader said, adding that accusing the Balochs of usurping Pakhtuns rights was completely wrong, since the Baloch nation itself was oppressed and struggling for its own rights.
He said that Sui gas discovered in 1952 and after 32 years Quetta city was provided gas while most of the areas of Balochistan were still deprived of this facility. “The Army has been used several times in Balochistan and decomposed dead bodies of Baloch youth are being thrown away,” he said.  Bezinjo said the NP from the very beginning believed in Baloch-Pakhtun unity and would play its role in strengthening brotherhood between the two nationalities.
Responding to a query about the formation of a Pakhtun province in Balochistan, he said that Pakhtun leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai was very respected for him, adding that the slogans for a new province was aimed at political point scoring in the run-up to the next general elections.
“As far as the issue of creation of a Pakhtun province is concerned, it should be taken up with Islamabad,” he opined, and assured that the Balochs would not become hurdle in the formation of a Pakhtun province.
Referring to mega projects in Baloch dominated-areas, the NP leader said that so-called mega projects had not benefited the Balochs because the latter had no authority on them which were meant to exploit Baloch wealth.
He said that Britain after Afghan war in 1879 through the Treaty of Gandamak and the Afghan ruler of that time Yaqoob Khan handed over Pakhtun areas to Britain and later they were incorporated in British Balochistan.
“If there was no Durand Line the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan would have become part of Afghanistan,” he added.