Underneath the pretext of strategic scope, Pakistan uses the Taliban as just a “tool” for its supremacy in Afghanistan, said retired Pakistani Senator Afrasiab Khattak, adding that now the strategy of the terror group to the peace process has remained unchanged as it favors violence in the region.
“They want dominance in Afghanistan under the pretext of strategic depth and they have pursued this policy. They see the Taliban as a tool for themselves,” This week Khattak said this in an interview with TOLOnews.
“We can say that their (the Taliban’s) approach has changed if they stop violence and say that they will feel the people’s pain,” He said.
Khattak’s remarks are on the basis of last week’s visit by Taliban deputy political figure Abdul Ghani Baradar to Pakistan.
A social media video showed Baradar among a group of people, presumably supporters of the Taliban, in Karachi in which he said that all judgments on the peace negotiations were being finalized in coordination with the leadership of the Taliban and the clerical council of the Taliban in Pakistan.
So far, the Taliban have not spoken on the location of Baradar’s meeting with the wounded group members.
On Friday, the Afghan Foreign Ministry responded to Baradar’s video and said that the involvement in Pakistan of Taliban leaders and their fighters is a “clear violation of the national sovereignty of Afghanistan.”
The ministry called on Pakistan to avoid the use of its territories by terrorists targeting Afghanistan, emphasizing that the closure of safe havens for insurgents and terrorists is key to the peaceful outcome of Afghanistan’s situation.
In Afghanistan, the country has long been criticized for offering help to Taliban terrorists.
In its 2019 report, the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the 1988 Sanctions Committee, which regulates sanctions against the Taliban, reported that nearly 5,000 terrorists related to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba were involved in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nangarhar provinces only.
Pakistan- Afganistan Relationships:
There were weak bilateral relations between both the countries, effective soon after Pakistan became independent in August 1947. Afghanistan’s sole vote against the entry of Pakistan to the United Nations in 1947, owing to Afghanistan’s frustration with the Durand Line’s permanence. Afghanistan instantly laid ultranationalist claims within Pakistan about Pashtun-dominated regions and sought renegotiation of the border in order to transfer it east to the Indus River, deep within Pakistani territory. The defeated armed secessionist movement headed by Mirzali Khan targeting Pakistan was materially supported by Afghanistan shortly following Pakistani independence.
