Daily Times

Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed said Sunday Pakistan will stand by its decision to not provide air bases to the United States, as the region’s politics heads towards a new direction following the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.

“Pakistan aspires for peace in Afghanistan,” the interior minister said while addressing a press conference in Rawalpindi, stressing that the government and Opposition were on the same page in this regard.

Rasheed’s statement comes after US President Joe Biden last week announced the military mission in Afghanistan would end on Aug 31 despite new concerns about the possibility of a civil war. “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,” Biden had said. “It’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”

Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, earlier this month, had also said Pakistan would not give airbases to the US if the government has decided against it, as he responded to questions posed by journalists after he had attended a military and intelligence briefing to parliamentarians on national security and the Afghanistan situation. “It is important, not only for Pakistan, but the entire region to initiate talks with the Afghan Taliban,” the interior minister said.

“No superpower can ignore Pakistan […] there is no pressure on us,” he said and reiterated that the country would not provide bases to anyone for carrying out operations in Afghanistan.