OUR authorities have very legitimate concerns over the Indian involvement in Afghanistan as its presence there will continue to pose grave security threat to Pakistan. In fact everybody knows the belligerence and hostile posture of India towards Pakistan.
Making a policy statement in the Senate on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi once again very forcefully and rightly reiterated Pakistan’s stance that it does not want any role of India in the security of Afghanistan. We understand that the same point would have also been conveyed to the US side in an effective manner. In fact any security related role for India in Afghanistan will neither be in the interest of the war-torn country nor Pakistan. India has a well-documented track record of sponsoring and perpetrating terrorism against Pakistan – something which has been acknowledged by the US officials in the past also. Involving it in the security-related matters of Afghanistan will amount to playing with the fire and putting the regional peace and security at greater risk. We have no doubt in saying that India will only use the Afghan land as a proxy to hurt the interests of Pakistan. We understand that the Afghan forces are still not capable to fully deal with the security-related issues, this is the reason that Pakistan has always called for a responsible withdrawal of the US troops from the neighbouring country. Then the breakout of violence in Afghanistan soon after the Doha peace deal is really disturbing. The deal should not be treated mere a piece of paper as it has offered a historic opportunity for the return of peace to the conflict-ridden country. The US, being a party to the deal, has a greater role now to engage both with the Taliban and the Afghan leadership to bring them to the table as per the timeline given in the deal. Violence should be shunned by both the sides as no talks could move forward in such kind of situation. It is also for the Afghan leadership not to play in the hands of anti-peace elements but they need to rise above their vested interests and show openheartedness to make the next phase of intra-Afghan dialogue successful and result oriented.
