File photo. Raveendran—AFP
Interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on Wednesday stressed that Pakistan has the greatest reason to want peace in Afghanistan, adding this was the primary reason the government preferred a policy of engagement with the Afghan Taliban.
“We are hosting close to four million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and this is something we have been hosting for almost four decades,” he said during a speech at the Asia Society in New York, where he is set to attend the U.N. General Assembly alongside caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar. “Afghan authorities and the international community continue to work to ensure that these Afghan refugees, whenever the situation settles down, go back to contribute to the economic development of their own country, which is Afghanistan,” he added.
“We also share the international community’s concern over the human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially issues related to women’s rights, girls’ education, and women’s employment,” he said, adding Pakistan would continue to raise these concerns with the Afghan government. However, he advised, the international community should “delink aid from political considerations,” as coercive measures were unlikely to produce results.
“Equally important is to avert a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. For that purpose I think delinking aid from political consideration holds the key in this regard,” he said. Referring to cross-border violence from Afghanistan, Jilani said Islamabad’s greatest threat was from the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic State Khorasan Province, who were using Afghan soil to target Pakistan. “We remain closely engaged with the Afghan interim administration on this issue, while we are committed to fighting and defeating the terrorists,” he said. “We wish to highlight that the terrorist outfits trying to gain a foothold in Afghanistan should be treated as a threat to the neighborhood and the entire international community,” he added.
Continuing his discussion on terrorism, he emphasized that Pakistan condemned all its forms. However, he added, the country rejected “any attempt to politicize the issue of terrorism by linking it with certain countries, communities, region and religion.” He said the entire world was a victim of terrorism and must work together to have any hope of eradicating it.
India
During his speech, Jilani regretted that Pakistan’s overtures of peace to India, such as the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, were met with hostility. “Pakistan desires peaceful and cooperative neighborly ties with India,” he said, while acknowledging that India’s illegal actions in India-occupied Kashmir and its human rights violations against Kashmiris had “further deteriorated relations.”
Referring to “worsening religious extremism,” he said the situation had been further complicated by India’s treatment of its Muslim population. “India’s belligerence and anti-Pakistan theatrics for domestic elections” are further driving a wedge between the two countries, he lamented.
On the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the caretaker foreign minister said Pakistan desired an “amicable resolution” to the conflict in line with U.N. principles and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty. “We will continue to play a constructive role to help end the war and mitigate the suffering of the Ukrainian people,” he said, hoping peace would soon prevail.