Afghanistan sings US song

WHAT can be more ridiculous than the accusation of Afghanistan that ‘Pakistan should stop terrorists from using its soil’ to attack the Afghan territory, before it makes deals with Taliban militants along the troubled border. In a statement the Afghan Defence Ministry has opposed Pakistan’s policy of initiating dialogue process with militants in an effort to resolve the conflict peacefully.

This is exactly in line with what the occupation forces especially the United States has been saying with the sole objective of putting more pressure on Pakistan. Washington has been urging Pakistan to do more forgetting that the country was already doing more – even more than the United States in the so-called war on terror. The US policy makers themselves admit that their successes in the war against terrorism are mainly because of the cooperation and sacrifices being rendered by Pakistan. Islamabad has done the maximum it can to check alleged infiltration of terrorists from its side to the other side of the Durand Line. It has deployed close to one hundred thousand troops, its forces are engaged in active operations and the country has advanced several workable proposals to allay fears of Afghanistan and the Western occupation forces. It proposed fencing and selected mining of the border but it could not be implemented because of opposition by Afghanistan. We believe that instead of expecting Pakistan to do their dirty job, the US and NATO forces should increase their strength in Afghanistan with adequate deployments along the border to check infiltration, if any, to their own satisfaction. These countries also have the capacity and capability to seal the entire border through different means to ensure that no one is able to cross the border. If the occupation forces have effective presence along the border and someone from this side tries to cross over they will have every right to shoot it for violating the sanctity of the border. One wonders that if the Western countries are unable to control the situation from their side then why they expect of Pakistan to deliver along the porous border. Conflict in FATA is in fact the product of American intervention, attacks and pressure on Pakistani forces to kill their own people. It is because of this that the new democratic Government, in line with its declared policy, has initiated talks with militants and we have seen that mere initiation of the process has led to cessation of attacks in different cities and towns. This clearly shows that the policy of the Pakistan Government was sagacious and as per aspirations of the people. Afghanistan or for that matter the Western countries have no business of telling Pakistan not to engage in talks with militants.