Reacting to the Afghan assertion of foreign support for the Taliban insurgency, Pakistan has told the U.N. Security Council that the Afghan Taliban’s “safe havens” are inside Afghanistan and not outside of the conflict-hit country – a reality evident from the large areas under militant control.
Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, permanent representative to the UN said during a debate on Afghanistan that the resilience of the insurgency led by the Taliban cannot be explained away by convenient references to external ‘safe havens’ or ‘support centers’.
Pakistan, she asserted, was committed not to allowing its territory to be used for terrorism against other countries. Pakistan’s Zarb e Azb and the ongoing Raddul Fassad military operations have succeeded in eliminating all terrorists and militant groups from the tribal territory bordering Afghanistan.
The Pakistani diplomat told the 15-member Council that Islamabad is “implementing border controls, including the fencing and monitoring of vulnerable sections of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”
In response to some provocative remarks made by her Afghan counterpart during the debate, she said that “As a country that continues to host over two million Afghan refugees, Pakistan expects the gratitude and not hostility from the Afghan government.”
The main thrust of Ambassador Lodhi’s remarks centered around the need for a negotiated end to the Afghan war. Pakistan’s consistent position has been that peace could be restored only through a negotiated settlement between Kabul and the Afghan militants.
“This”, she pointed out, ‘has also long been the consensus of the international community,” noting that a negotiated peace was also backed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who recently visited Kabul.
She said that “the promotion of a political settlement and the pursuit of a military solution in Afghanistan are mutually incompatible.”
Continued reliance on a military option, or enhancing troop numbers without an accompanying political strategy, would only lead to more violence and bloodshed, Ambassador Lodhi argued. “It would not yield a political settlement.”
“Over the years, Pakistan has done what it can, when asked, to help facilitate such a negotiated settlement.” She referred in this regard to the 2015 Murree talks and efforts under the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) framework; as also her country’s engagement with the Heart of Asia conference, International Contact Group, Moscow Format, and, most recently, the Kabul process, among others.
But she made it clear that while others could help by promoting a negotiated settlement, peace could only be negotiated when the Afghan parties desired it and eschewed a military solution.
She said “today there is every reason for the Afghan parties, and their friends, to pursue the path of a negotiated peace. All of them face a common threat from the ISIS and the terrorist groups affiliated with it.”
“Among them, the TTP and the Jamat ul Ahrar target Pakistan from their bases in Afghanistan.”
“There is no other country, which will gain more from peace in Afghanistan,” Ambassador Lodhi said.
“We are confident that, whatever our differences in the past, in the end, the deep bonds of religion, culture, history and geography between Pakistan and Afghanistan will assert themselves and produce an era of peaceful and mutually beneficial cooperation between our nations.”
In a scathing report, earlier, Tadamichi Yamamoto, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, warned that the recent surge of violent attacks in Afghanistan could signal a much worse and more fragile period ahead, as he called for urgent action to strengthen stability, including through improving the Government’s credibility, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and avoid violence.
“The months since my last briefing have been unusually tense in Afghanistan,”he said.
“Without enhanced efforts by the National Unity Government to increase political inclusiveness, strengthen accountability, and improve the Government’s credibility, particularly in the security sector, we are likely to face more crises in an increasingly fragile environment.”
In his briefing to the Council, the senior UN official spoke of the emerging difference following the 31 May terrorist attack in Kabul and warned that violent extremist groups could try to exacerbate the divisions, especially along sectarian lines.
Asking all sides to exercise restraint and avoid violence, Yamamoto underscored the need to address the root cause of the issues and reminded national actors that efforts to build consensus and political stability are critical.
But Afghan Ambassador Mahmoud Saikal sought to shift the blame to outside factors and said reversing the tide against terror was contingent on eliminating support centers beyond the country’s borders that produced, nurtured and empowered terrorists operating in Afghanistan.
