Peshawar, Dec. 2 (AP): Economic development is crucial to defusing the pro-Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s impoverished north, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said today, warning that “foreign forces” would enter the region unless the government re-established control there.

“We will use the military in the tribal areas but we disagree that a military operation is the only solution to the problem,” Bhutto said in Peshawar, capital of troubled North West Frontier Province. “The people of tribal areas are our own people. We want to bring them into the modern age by giving them progress and prosperity.”

Yesterday, Bhutto had launched her campaign for parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8, urging the people of Peshawar, a stronghold of religious parties, to forsake militancy and support her secular Pakistan People’s Party.

Other Opposition parties have threatened to boycott the ballot unless President Pervez Musharraf reinstates several supreme court judges he fired after declaring emergency rule on November 3. The Opposition parties claim he chose replacements who would let the government rig the ballot.

A boycott would be a serious blow to US-backed efforts to return Pakistan to democracy after eight years of military dictatorship. Musharraf has said emergency rule will end on December 16 — as demanded by Washington and the Opposition.