Pakistan ready to assist peace talks between Afghan govt, Taliban
Maleeha says both countries need to be clear who their common enemies are
NEW YORK - Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi has issued a strong rebuttal to allegations that the escalating violence in Afghanistan was being driven from Pakistani soil.
Participating in a debate on Afghanistan on Friday, she said there were vast uncontrolled areas in Afghanistan from where such violence was emanating against both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Condemning all terrorist violence in Afghanistan, she told the 15-member council that continued conflict in Afghanistan was not in Pakistan’s national interest.
Warning that those working overtime to sabotage and poison Pakistan-Afghan relations were no friends of Afghanistan, she said both Pakistan and Afghanistan needed to be clear who their common enemies were. “Pakistan’s efforts to encourage the Taliban leaders to revive the dialogue with Kabul should not be misconstrued as any form of endorsement for their revived violence,” she added.
Maleeha said that in Afghanistan, as elsewhere, there were two possible paths to ending war and violence: a military victory over the militants, or a negotiated peace. She pointed to the general consensus within the international community that peace could be best restored through a negotiated solution with the Taliban.
Maleeha said that while external parties could play a role in facilitating Afghan reconciliation they could not impose a solution. Reconciliation and dialogue, she said, has to be between the Afghans themselves and “owned and conducted by Afghans”.
She recalled that it was at the request of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that Pakistan undertook to facilitate a dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban. “Our sole aim was to establish direct contact between them and the unity government,” she added.
She said that the first round of intra-Afghan talks was hosted in Murree on July 7, whose outcome was encouraging. “Both the Afghan government and representatives of the Taliban agreed to continue the dialogue. A specific date – July 31 – was set for the second round. But this was derailed by a number of well-known developments and followed by a spike in violence in Afghanistan,” she added.
Ambassador Maleeha said that Pakistan stood ready to assist the Afghan reconciliation process and had refrained from responding to allegations from certain Afghan quarters.
“Peace in Afghanistan, and cooperation with Kabul, will enable us to fully defeat our common threat from violent groups”, she said, adding that it would pave the way for the voluntary return of millions of Afghan refugees Pakistan still hosted – “the most protracted presence of refugees in any single country in recent history”.
“It will open the way for the ambitious plans for regional development and integration we have jointly worked on. Mutual respect for each other’s national interests and sensitivities must be the bedrock of the future Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship,” she said.
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