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Pakistan opposes military option against Afghan Taliban
Pakistan is rejecting Afghan demands for military action against Taliban commanders within Pakistan and emphasizes the need to continue talks for a settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan.
In Islamabad Tuesday, Pakistani foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz dismissed demands by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that Pakistan evict Taliban insurgents through military action or arrest and hand them over to Kabul for trial and punishment for killing innocent Afghans. Ghani recently announced that Afghanistan will not seek Pakistan’s help in arranging reconciliation talks with the Taliban.
Aziz called Afghan outrage at Pakistan an expression of frustration because they (Afghan leaders) were expecting reconciliation talks would have started by now and led to a reduction in violence. He said it is unfortunate the Taliban has gone ahead with its spring offensive and negotiations have also not started.
The Pakistani adviser, however, also said the insurgency has been unable to make significant advances in the fighting and has not captured any territory. He said that if stability persists on the battlefield, it could push the Taliban to the talks with the Afghan government.
Aziz said Pakistan has not yet come to that stage because officials believe it is premature; but Afghanistan is pushing Pakistan to urgently examine and take action against Taliban leaders. Aziz added that Islamabad is telling Kabul the military option has been applied since 2001 but has not ended the Afghan conflict, referring to the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.
He said, “The reconciliation option cannot materialize in just two to four weeks and should be given due time because it is the only way to bring peace to Afghanistan.”
Aziz said Pakistan will continue to pursue efforts together with the United States and China for a peaceful resolution of the Afghan war. He added that a Taliban delegation from its political office in Qatar also visited Pakistan last week as part of the “exploratory contacts” Islamabad is making to facilitate Afghan peace talks.
The Pakistani official said Beijing, Washington and even negotiators from Afghanistan’s High Peace Council also maintain contacts with the Taliban’s Qatar office and are using them to promote the peace and reconciliation process.
Kabul has criticized Islamabad for allowing the Taliban to send a delegation to Islamabad, saying “a terrorist group” should not have been allowed to do so.
Kabul hardened its stance toward reconciliation talks and relations with Pakistan after a deadly bomb-and-gun assault in the Afghan capital on April 19 left nearly 70 people dead and around 350 others wounded.
After the Kabul attack, the Afghan government accused Islamabad of not acting against the Taliban and militants linked to the Haqqani network that Kabul alleges used Pakistani soil to plot the assault and other insurgent violence in Afghanistan. Haqqanis have ties to the Pakistani spy agency, according to Afghan and U.S. officials.
VOA
The United Nations top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, who is stepping down from his post at the end of June, said on Tuesday at a briefing that he was leaving the job “with a sense of work unfulfilled because the world is a worse place now than when I joined up in 2021.”
Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and head of OCHA (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) said Tuesday the Islamic Emirate has not fulfilled its obligations over human rights.
Speaking at a briefing Griffiths said the Islamic Emirate, after regaining control of Afghanistan, made commitments to the international community regarding the provision of human rights, especially women’s rights.
“I had spent a lifetime working in Afghanistan in one way or another. And we had some hopes then, we had indeed some written commitments then as to how we would be able to go forward with the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) – and those hopes have been dashed,” he said.
“The edicts against women and girls have come one after the other, and the degree to which and the issues upon which the international community engages with the Taliban (Islamic Emirate) on behalf of the people of Afghanistan is still a conversation,” he added.
He went on to say however that this issue was superseded by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Then, just months later, focus shifted to Gaza and Sudan. He noted that the UN’s attention is now on “big crises” – Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, but that Syria, Yemen, and Haiti “are places still of great suffering”.
Griffiths was appointed Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in May 2021.He will step down at the end of June for health reasons.
The UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan held talks with an Afghan delegation led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, acting Minister of Interior Affairs, in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday where the two sides discussed ways to enhance ties to serve mutual interests and contribute to regional stability.
The discussions focused on economic and development fields, as well as support for Afghanistan’s reconstruction.
Haqqani expressed his pleasure at meeting Sheikh Mohamed and praised the relations between the UAE and Afghanistan.
Moscow Format Contact Group on Afghanistan has been convened for this week where discussions will take place on issues relating to the country, Russia’s special presidential representative for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov confirmed Tuesday.
Kabulov said this meeting will take place on Saturday, in Tehran, ahead of the planned Doha meeting later this month.
“We have discussed with representatives of the Afghan leadership the preparations for the next, third meeting of special representatives for Afghanistan and the UN Secretary-General in Doha.
“This meeting will be held on June 30 – July 1 in Doha, but prior to that, we will gather in Tehran, literally this Saturday. This is the so-called Moscow format Contact Group,” he was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.
He added that apart from Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan make up the group.
Kabulov noted that the consultations will focus on preparations for the Doha meeting.
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