Pakistan will keep schools open in the troubled northwestern Swat valley despite a ban on girls issued by the local Taliban, a minister pledged Sunday.
It follows a threat last month by a local Taliban commander to kill any girls attending classes after January 15, and to blow up schools where they are enrolled.
Officials said last week that, as a result of the threat, about 400 private schools were unlikely to open their doors after the winter holidays, depriving tens of thousands of students of an education.
But Pakistan's information minister Sherry Rehman vowed to keep open all girls schools in Swat and North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
"From March 1, all closed schools in Swat and NWFP will be reopened after the winter break," Rehman told reporters in the southern city of Karachi.
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