NEW YORK: Pakistan welcomed a Taliban announcement assuring the world that its return to power won’t provide a safe harbour for terrorists nor lead to backsliding on women’s rights but asked the international community to hold the insurgent group that now controls the war-battered country to its assurances.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, welcomed the assurance that among other commitments announced the formation of an inclusive government and to uphold the rights of its people.
Akram observed the Taliban leadership gave those assurances realising the global community was taking note of its actions.
“They want recognition and acceptance by the international community, and we should use that leverage in order to ensure good behaviour on their part,” he told the host, Bret Baier.
While Baier kept voicing scepticism over the group’s pledges and recalling their history, the ambassador said: “We need to look ahead and see how we can influence and evolve the situation in a direction which serves the interests of Afghanistan, of the region, and of the international community.”
In this regard, among the priority actions were the evacuation of those who want to leave Afghanistan, he said, noting the United States was evacuating its own people and others as well.
He further said Pakistan was also helping in the evacuation — taking diplomats, international agencies’ representatives as well as journalists, and “anybody who wishes to leave through Pakistan”.
“We also need to encourage an inclusive government in Kabul and there too, the United States, Pakistan and other countries are working in Doha, as well as in Islamabad,” Akram told Baier.
Last week, a political delegation from Afghanistan, led by Wolesi Jirga (Parliament) Speaker Mir Rahman Rahmani, called on Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and top leadership “in order to get an engagement with them and the Taliban in order to evolve, a representative government,” the ambassador recalled.
Responding to a question related to the threat of the return of al Qaeda following the arrival of the Taliban, Akram said the insurgent group has “basically been decimated” through the cooperation between the United States and Pakistan.
“We captured and killed over 600, al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and in the border regions of Pakistan,” he said. “The group was now a shadow of itself and was not operational.”
The real threat now comes from the so-called Islamic State group, an organisation that the Taliban have been fighting.
“There are other terrorists who are more dangerous — the TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan), which attacks Pakistan and has 6,000 fighters on the Afghan soil — that is what we are worried about,” he said.
“So we are worried about Da’esh, we are worried about the TTP, al Qaeda is a shadow, and, of course, we should control it, but the threat is much more multifarious than just that.”
Akram said he was looking forward to peace in Afghanistan because this would be good for Pakistan as well.
The diplomat said there was convergence among the role of Pakistan and the US in fighting terrorism in the region, and to ensure that there was no militancy arising from Afghanistan since it threatened both the states.
“So, we have a common cause, and we need to build an international coalition in order to ensure that that there is no terrorism which emanates from Afghanistan,” he said.
