Pakistan on Wednesday took objection to “unwarranted” references to Pakistan in a bill that was recently introduced in the United States Senate was “inconsistent” with the spirit of cooperation that had existed between the two countries on Afghanistan since 2001.
“We see that a debate is under way in Washington both in the media and on Capitol Hill to reflect on and examine the circumstances leading to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The draft legislation introduced in the US Senate by a group of Senate Republicans seems to be a reaction to this debate,” Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said in a statement.
However, the references to Pakistan in the bill were “completely unwarranted”, he said. Terming those references as “inconsistent in spirit” with Pak-US cooperation on Afghanistan since the American invasion in 2001, he recalled that Pakistan had facilitated the Afghan peace process and helped evacuate citizens of the US and other countries from Afghanistan in August.
Ahmad reiterated that Pakistan had always maintained that there was no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. It had also stressed that a coercive approach would not work and the only way to achieve sustainable peace in the war-torn country was through engagement and dialogue, he added.
He noted that sustained security cooperation between Pakistan and the US would “remain critical in dealing with any future terrorist threat in the region”.
“Such proposed legislative measures are, therefore, uncalled for and counterproductive,” the spokesperson said.
Earlier, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Senator Jim Risch and 21 other Republicans introduced the Afghanistan Counterterrorism, Oversight, and Accountability Act in the Senate on Monday to address outstanding issues related to the Biden administration’s “rushed and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
The proposed legislation calls for a comprehensive report on who supported the Taliban during America’s 20 years in Afghanistan, helped the group in capturing Kabul in mid-August, and supported their offensive on Panjshir Valley.
The proposed legislation requires the secretary of state, in consultation with the secretary of defence and the director of national intelligence, to submit a report on entities providing support to the Taliban to the appropriate congressional committees.
The report must reach the relevant committees “not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this act, and not less frequently than annually thereafter”.
The first report shall include “an assessment of support by state and non-state actors, including the government of Pakistan, for the Taliban between 2001 and 2020,” including the provision of sanctuary space, financial support, intelligence support, logistics and medical support, training, equipping, and tactical, operation or strategic direction.
The legislation also requires “an assessment of support by state and non-state actors, including the government of Pakistan, for the September 2021 offensive of the Taliban against the Panjshir Valley and the Afghan resistance”.
“We continue to see the grave implications of the Biden administration’s haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan,” Senator Risch said in a statement issued by his office.
“We face a renewed terror threat against the United States, and the Taliban wrongly seek recognition at the United Nations, even as they suppress the rights of Afghan women and girls.”
Senator Risch said he was proud to introduce the legislation to address these concerns and rebuild America’s credibility.
“I hope the committee will be able to mark it up soon so that we can quickly help those we left behind and protect America’s national security interests before it’s too late,” he added.
The proposed bill also seeks to impose sanctions on the Taliban and others in Afghanistan for terrorism, drug-trafficking, and human rights abuses, as well as on those providing support to the Taliban, including foreign governments.
It states that the US should not recognise any member of the Taliban as the ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States or as the ambassador of Afghanistan to the United Nations, and places restrictions on non-humanitarian foreign assistance to the war-torn country.
It also calls for a comprehensive review of foreign assistance to entities that support the Taliban.
The bill also seeks to establish a US State Department task force to focus on the evacuation of American citizens, legal permanent residents, and Afghan Special Immigrant Visas who are still stuck in Afghanistan, as well as impose oversight mechanisms on the processing of SIVs and refugees.
It also calls for strategies for counterterrorism and for the disposition of Taliban-captured US equipment.
Reacting to the development, federal Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari said that Pakistan will once again be made to pay a heavy price for being an ally of the US in the ‘War on Terror’.
“Twenty years of presence by economically and militarily powerful US & Nato left behind chaos with no stable governance structures. Pakistan is now being scapegoated for this failure,” she said.
“This was never our war. We suffered 80,000 casualties, a decimated economy, over 450 drone attacks by our US ‘ally’ and the disastrous fallout of these attacks on our tribal areas and people,” she said.
She called on the US Senate to do “serious introspection”.
“Enough is enough. It is time for those powers that were present in Afghanistan to look to their own failures instead of targeting Pakistan which paid a heavy price […] for being an ally and suffering constant abuse in a war that wasn’t ours,” the minister said.
