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The rejection of American power & ‘Exceptionalism’ …VIDEO | No need to turn to US to settle bilateral issues: Pakistan to Afghanistan
Pakistan says neighboring Afghanistan should resolve its reservations with Islamabad bilaterally rather than involving the United States, referring to a section of a joint US-Afghan declaration on peace efforts.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi made the comment in an interview with Reuters on Sunday, a day after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg signed a declaration of peace efforts.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi gestures as he speaks during an interview with Reuters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office in Islamabad, on March 1, 2020. (Photo by Reuters)
The declaration, whose signing coincided with the signing in Doha of an agreement between the Taliban militant group and Washington, stated in one of its clauses that the US “commits to facilitate discussions between Afghanistan and Pakistan to work out arrangements to ensure neither country’s security is threatened by actions from the territory of the other side.”
However, this section infuriated Islamabad, prompting Pakistan’s top diplomat to say that Kabul should talk “directly” to Islamabad on bilateral issues.
“The US is planning to withdraw and we will always remain neighbors,” Qureshi said, referring to Washington’s intent to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as part of the US-Taliban agreement. “If I have an issue with Afghanistan, I will not ask Washington to play a role,” he added.
For years, the two neighboring countries have been at odds. Kabul publicly accuses Islamabad of harboring Taliban leaders after they were ousted from power in Afghanistan back in 2001 after US-led invasion, and purportedly allowing safe havens for attacks against international and Afghan forces.
Pakistan strongly rejects the allegations and, in return, blames Kabul for allegedly giving anti-Pakistan militants refuge to plot attack in Pakistan, charges that Afghanistan flatly denies.
“You know a trust deficit has existed and Pakistan has done its best to bridge that trust deficit,” Qureshi further said, stressing that there are institutionalized mechanisms through which Afghanistan can raise “any issue under the sun” instead of turning to Washington.
After 19 years of war, US signs deal with Taliban for troop withdrawalAn agreement between the US and the Taliban in Qatar sets the stage for end of nearly two decades of war in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Pakistani foreign minister noted that the US-Taliban peace agreement in the Qatari capital would have never reached if Islamabad had not convinced everyone that there was no military solution to the 18-year conflict in Afghanistan.
“We convinced the Taliban to put forward an authoritative delegation that has the capacity to implement what they agree upon, and that wouldn’t have happened without Pakistan’s facilitation,” Qureshi stressed.
According to the US-Taliban deal, the American and NATO troops will withdraw from the war-ravaged country within 14 months.
The deal also proposes an intra-Afghan dialogue with the government in Kabul and the release of 5,000 Taliban members from prison.
The intra-Afghan talks are to begin on March 10 but no specific details have been given.
The US invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of the so-called war on terror, overthrowing the Taliban regime that had ruled over the country till then.
Since the US invasion of Afghanistan, Washington has spent more than $2 trillion waging war on the impoverished country, leaving more than 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians dead.
Now, with the 2020 presidential election around the corner, US President Donald Trump says it is time to end the unpopular war in Afghanistan and bring the US occupying troops home.
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