Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: On Wednesday, National Security Adviser (NSA) Dr Moeed Yusuf said the world community has to focus its efforts to ensure relief and assistance to over 35 million Afghan nationals at the brink of human catastrophe as financial sanctions were hampering international donor agencies’ aid endeavors in the war-torn country.

“It is necessary for the audience and the anchorperson to understand what kind of human disaster we are going to face in Afghanistan”, Moeed Yusuf said in an interview.

Dr. Moeed said the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in its report said that 23 million Afghans would acutely go short of food this winter which was now starting, adding, “70 percent are already apportioning food, 60 percent are borrowing from others and on top of that more than 30 percent are reporting a shortage of medicines.”

The NSA said the Western outlets were also reporting that Afghan women were selling their children to buy household commodities. “Imagine what reaction we would get when it was happening somewhere closer to the shores where you are sitting now,” he pointed out to the anchorperson.

“This has to be beyond politics and any question of Taliban, right now the world has to focus on getting assistance for the sake of 35-40 million afghans who are going to suffer it’s really about them at this point, so Pakistan is doing what it can,” the NSA mentioned.

He said Pakistan was not a rich country and donated some $30million and there were also private donations being given to Afghanistan. “The real issue is that why is not international humanitarian organizations being allowed to get money into Afghanistan to provide in-kind assistance to pay salaries to health staff,” he questioned.

“Humanitarian assistance has been pledged, a lot of it, by the western countries and others in the world,” he said and added that the reason that the money was not getting across was the banking channels.

“It’s just one thing that are some sanctions that have made the banks very cautious and so that we are not allowing even the UN, WFP, ICRC to run their own bank accounts to get their money into Afghanistan, purchase things and give it to Afghans who are going to potentially die this winter,” he warned.

He underlined that it should be made clear that humanitarian assistance was already exempted from any sanctions or the government of the Taliban it has nothing to do with them. “This money is going to go to international organizations who are directly going to feed and support the average Afghan woman and man who we all profess to want to protect,” he said.

To a question, he said Pakistan has offered to become the air and land bridge, adding, “You (anchorperson) were here recently and know what Pakistan did to support evacuations of vulnerable Afghans and we have got 53,000 people transferred and transited through Pakistan of over 42 nationalities including many Americans.”

Pakistan, he said was now offering its territory to become a land and air bridge where international organizations come as there were no banking restrictions, could transact, buy things from the Pakistani market, import goods into Pakistan and sent across via truck or route.

Dr Moeed queried that why there was yet no movement or a cold response despite enough money. “I am speaking to you as Pakistan’s NSA very selfishly. My neighbours’ house is on fire I have the right to call 911 and tell them this is going to reach me,” he alluded to Pakistan’s repeated flagging of the Afghan humanitarian crisis in the making.

Pakistan had four decades of history as Afghanistan got unstable spillover came to Pakistan because it had 1,600 miles of border with its Western neighbor, he added. To another query, he responded, “Some 25,000-35,000 Afghans cross over into Pakistan every day and then go back. What will happen, if there is a refugee crisis, Pakistan will be hit the next day.”

He said Pakistan already had four million Afghan refugees for the past four decades, adding, “…think about what is happening in Belarus, what happened during Syria conflict and how stingy much of the world was with the refugees.” Dr Moeed said, “We are as generous as it gets but we have got to prevent more human suffering and should not be talking about what happens when more refugees come to Pakistan”.

Responding to queries pertaining to the interim Afghan government, he said, “We have formal relations with Afghanistan and there is no recognition obviously. Pakistan has constantly led regional diplomacy and said we need to have regional and international consensus for a way forward.”

But in terms of the recent visits of delegations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said, “We have three issues, one is humanitarian assistance and result is in front of you and Pakistan is shipping what it can. Second, we have 1,600 miles of border with Afghanistan and border management is crucial for us.”

“We cannot afford international terrorists still in Afghanistan and IS escapees of the world and then the TTP who martyred and massacred thousands of Pakistanis to again create trouble for us. In past two decades, India and Afghan intelligence was supporting TTP and we are having negotiations with the Afghan interim government on that issue,” he said.

He added that the third issue was that Pakistan was urging the Afghan government to do exactly what the world was asking on human rights, inclusivity and ensuring no terrorism from their soil. When Afghan came to Pakistan, he said it was the first time in troika plus including Pakistan, China, Russia and US meeting also took place and the US and others met this delegation. “Because we want to make sure that there is direct conservation.

Everybody comes to Pakistan but our role is merely to facilitate and remove any misgivings and all of us are working towards this goal but this is all irrelevant at the moment and will urge the world to think about the 35 million Afghans facing a humanitarian crisis,” he said.

Pakistan, he said was hosting four million Afghan refugees and many of them were undocumented, where it was Pakistan that asked for documenting all and making dignified repatriation for the past 20 years. But the Afghan governments of that time refused that they were not interested to take back their people, he added.

He refuted the claim of the anchorperson for questioning the laws and regulations of Pakistan and said, “It is not right to say we have no laws we are the country that has not restricted the refugees to camps rather 70 percent of them live out of these camps, benefit from the Pakistani economy,” he told.

Dr Moeed added that the majority of Afghan refugees were living in Karachi that was Pakistan’s economic hub. “….that’s how open we are and the question of Pakistan not treating them well is that someone is misinformed as we have done beyond international norms,” he remarked.