Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will invite attention of Afghanistan to recent ‘unhelpful and unfortunate’ comments by a senior Afghan foreign ministry official that are being seen as ‘a clear deviation’ from the key principles of a new bilateral dialogue mechanism, an official told Daily Times on Saturday.

The two neighbours had operationised the Afghan Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS) earlier in the month to deepen interaction in all spheres of bilateral engagements and to ensure an uninterrupted dialogue.

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani agreed on the seven principles of APAPPS in their meeting in Kabul on April 6.

The 6th principle of APAPPS read, “The two countries will avoid public blame game and instead use APAPPS cooperation mechanisms to respond to mutual issues of contention and concerns.”

In an interview to The Diplomat, an international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region, on May 14, Ashraf Haidari, the director-general of the Policy and Strategy of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, leveled serious allegations against Pakistan. “The Taliban are a proxy extremist force, which Pakistan created and launched to destabilise Afghanistan in 1994,” he was quoted as saying in the interview.

“The deliberate avoidance by Pakistan to engage with Afghanistan on a state-to-state basis has continued to derail our peace process, effectively undermining the many peace initiatives pursued by the Afghan government, with the support of our key international allies and partners, including the United States and China,” he said.

Haidri continued, “Although the country made a U-turn on 9/11 to disown the Taliban, whose tyrannical regime was toppled in 2001, Pakistan reconstituted the Taliban in the post-9/11 period.”

“Despite our relentless efforts to engage with Pakistan on a state-to-state level to address both sides’ legitimate concerns, they have been reluctant to cooperate, continuing to provide safe havens and other operational means for the Taliban to maintain a terror campaign across Afghanistan that daily maims and kills scores of our innocent people,” he maintained.

Responding to his comments ahead of a trilateral meeting of senior diplomats and officials in Beijing early next week, an Pakistani official told Daily Times, “Mr Haidiri’s comments are unfortunate at a time when both sides are determined to implement all the key principles of APAPPS.”

In contrast to the belligerant tone of Ashraf Haidari, a key Afghan diplomat, Afghan ambassador in Islamabad Omar Zakhilwal has a different approach towards bilateral ties with Pakistan.

Zakhilwal, who was actively involved in a series of meetings ahead of the APAPPS, acknoweldged in a recent interview with an Afghan TV channel that Pakistan had suffered a lot because of wars in Afghanistan. “Pakistan is paying a price for lawlessness in Afghanistan. Pakistan is currently ranked among the top five least peaceful nations in the world,” the Afghan ambassador, who is also President Ashraf Gahni’s special envoy to Pakistan, told private TV channel Kabul News.

“Pakistan has achieved nothing. It has harmed its own peace. There are political problems in Pakistan. Pakistan faces security challenges in its tribal regions. So this is not a benefit but lose.”

He also favoured bilateral engagement with Pakistan as he argued that the involvement of third parties had not been very effective.

“If we want to seek the role of the US, China, Turkey, Saudi and even Iran and Tajikistan also mediated but that mediation had not been effective. Bilateral negotiations are useful. There is a need for contacts and talks even if relations are deteriorated,” he said, adding the US intervention in bilateral relations had not been proved effective in the past and will not in the future.

The Afghan ambassador, however, reiterated Kabul’s objections at Pakistan’s decision of fencing the border, calling the move ‘unilateral and illegal’.

“Such controversial and one-side measures are not durable. People on both sides of the Durand Line cannot be divided that is why people removed fencing in some areas,” Zakhilwal said.

Published in Daily Times, May 27^th 2018.