US should convince Pakistan to end supporting Taliban: Khalilzad

Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Kabul and Baghdad and the United Nations in his topic  in Wall Street Journal has said that now the United States should disclose series information that indicates Pakistani support for the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

” Based on my discussions with President Ashraf Ghani and other senior Afghan officials in Kabul in recent days, I believe that the killing over the May 21 weekend of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike has created a golden hour in which to finally secure Pakistan’s cooperation in stopping support for the Haqqani network terrorists and for the extremist Taliban.” Zalmay Khalilzad said.

According to Khalilzad, Pakistan was playing a perfidious and dangerous double game and needed to be called on it.

But because of factors such as the (actual or supposed) important Pakistani contribution to the fight against al Qaeda, Pakistan’s role as transit route for supplies to our troops in Afghanistan, and its own (however halfhearted) campaign against Pakistani Islamist extremists—senior U.S. officials either ignored evidence of Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban or treated it as a cost worth tolerating.

One result: Senior Taliban leaders were soon living openly in Pakistani cities like Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta.

In the meantime, the Afghan government says Pakistan should stand by its commitments and take serious measures against the armed Taliban group.

“Killing of Taliban supereme leader and other terrorist leaders in neighboring countries shows Afghanistan indicative. Now we expect Pakistan to fulfill its commitments that vowed in the quartet meeting,” Shah Hussain Murtazawi, President’s deputy spokesman said.

The death of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan could be consequential. Now much depends on what the Obama administration does now.