U.S. President Joe Biden says Pakistan’s position in ending the Afghan war and moving toward a peace deal is important.
On his 100th day in office, President Biden met with Democratic representatives. He talked with Tahir Javed, a Pakistan-born US democrat leader, from Pakistan.
He informed Javed that Pakistan will play an important role in bringing stability to Afghanistan in the future.
Biden reassured Javed that he will keep up with his commitments.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, said last week that Pakistan recognises the effect of Afghanistan’s civil war.
He stated that he believes stability in Afghanistan is still feasible, as the United States has begun to remove its residual troops from the region.
Khalilzad was speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was holding the first public hearing on the administration’s Afghanistan strategy after Vice President Joe Biden revealed intentions to remove troops from Afghanistan by September 11 after a two-decade conflict.
“Pakistan’s leaders have emphasized publicly and to US officials that they do not support a military takeover by the Taliban. I believe they understand that not only Afghanistan, but their country too will face grave consequences in the event of a return to a wider civil war,” Khalilzad said.
Keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan made little sense because the war could not be resolved by continued combat, according to Khalilzad, who also said that the US is assisting the Kabul government in finding contractors to substitute the departing American troops.
Both U.S. troops and non-diplomatic civilian staff, including US contractors, were expected to leave by May 1 under the terms of the Trump administration’s February 2020 agreement with the Taliban.
Biden postponed the withdrawal as his government reviewed the agreement and Afghanistan policy.
He agreed earlier this month to start the withdrawal and finish it by September 11, the anniversary of Al-Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the US, which sparked the US-led invasion that year.
