NEW YORK: Awami National Party, USA, and Khyber Society, USA, are jointly holding First Bacha Khan Peace Conference in New York on April 12.

The theme of the conference is "Philosophy of non-violence and global challenges." It will explore the possibility of waging peace by following in Bacha Khan's philosophy of non-violence.

Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, historian, biographer and scholar of international repute, who also wrote the biography of Bacha Khan, will be the keynote speaker. President of Awami National Party (ANP) Asfandyar Wali Khan, Afrasiab Khattak and Dr Fazle Rahim Marwat will address the conference from Pakistan via telephone. Prominent scholar, poet and researcher Dr Raj Wali Shah Khattak, Abdul Wahid Mashwani a prominent Afghan scholar, writer and a one time companion of Bacha Khan, Dr Munir Khan and Dr Saleem Afridi of Bacha Khan Education Foundation USA will be some of the speakers who will address the one-day conference. It will also be addressed by representatives of different Pakistani political parties. The conference is being held at Paradise East Banquet Hall, Brooklyn, New York. It will be attended by people from cross sections of life in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Pakhtuns from Pennsylvania, home to a large Pakhtun population, are also expected to attend. Representatives of a number of American think tanks are also likely to participate in the conference, the first of its kind in the USA.

Arrangements for the conference were finalized at a meeting held at Bacha Khan Markaz in Brooklyn under the chairmanship of Abdur Rab Khan, President ANP USA and was largely attended by the office bearers of the party and the Khyber Society, a cultural organization of Pakhtun Americans. 

President of Awami National Party, USA, Abdur Rab Khan, general Secretary ANP USA Iqbal Ali Khan and President Khyber Society USA Taj Akbar Khan have appealed to the Pakistani community in general and the Pakhtun community in particular to attend the conference in large numbers and make it a success.