ISLAMABAD: Islamabad has conveyed to Kabul it will no longer conduct official business with its national security chief because of his recent “abusive outburst” against Pakistan, Voice of America reported citing diplomatic sources.
The trigger came from National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib who routinely accuses Pakistan and its spy agency of supporting and directing the Taliban’s insurgency in Afghanistan.
In a public speech earlier this month in eastern Nangarhar province, next to the Pakistan border, Mohib not only repeated his allegations but launched into an expletive-laden tirade against Islamabad. His remarks outraged leadership in Islamabad, who denounced them, saying they “debased all norms of interstate communication.”
Pakistan lodged a strong protest with the Afghan government and conveyed “deep resentment” in Pakistan over Mohib’s “undignified” remarks, VOA report quoted a senior official privy to the matter as saying.
The official said that Kabul has been told Islamabad would not hold bilateral engagements with Mohib. It has also been conveyed “by our side that Afghan side is not serious in engaging with Pakistan, but only in the blame game and degrading Pakistan’s sincere efforts,” the official added.
Afghanistan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, while addressing a public gathering in the southeastern border province of Khost earlier this week, indirectly confirmed Pakistan’s assertions.
In a video clip from the speech posted on social media, Saleh asserted that “a Western leader” recently telephoned Ghani and told him that Pakistan does not want to work with a “Pashtun leader in Afghanistan.”
The vice president did not identify the foreign leader, nor did he name Mohib but the Afghan national security advisor is an ethnic Pashtun.
Diplomatic sources confirmed to VOA that Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, during his visit to Kabul this month, had raised the issue in his meeting with Ghani in the presence of Nick Carter, Britain’s chief of the defense staff.
Carter has been engaged in facilitating contacts between the two countries to help ease tensions at a time when the United States and NATO allies have been withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war with the Taliban.
A statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations following the May 10 meeting in Kabul confirmed it was held in the presence of Carter.
“Matters of mutual interest, current developments in the Afghan peace process, enhanced bilateral security and defense cooperation and need for effective border management between the two brotherly countries were discussed,” the statement said but stopped short of commenting on the controversy stemming from Mohib’s remarks.
Mohib had stirred a controversy in March after he accused the American special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, of seeking personal benefit by sidelining the Afghan government during peace talks with the Taliban.
He suggested that Khalilzad had sidelined Afghan leaders because of his ambitions to be a “viceroy” in an interim government if the negotiations succeed.
“We see our relationship being impacted by what is going on, and we would like to rescue it,” Mohib told a small group of journalists in Washington.
