Pakistan has urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to take firm action against terrorism in neighbouring Afghanistan, with Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram highlighting the threat of allowing terrorists to operate with impunity in the region.
This comes days after Afghan Taliban officials announced they would attend the third UN-sponsored conference on Afghanistan in the Qatari capital, Doha, on June 30 and July 1, after rejecting an invitation to the previous meeting.
The Taliban regime’s participation in the conference of foreign envoys to Afghanistan was in doubt after it was not included in the first round and rejected an invitation to take part in the second round in February.
“A delegation from the Islamic Emirate will participate in the upcoming Doha conference. They will represent Afghanistan there and express Afghanistan’s position,” Zabihullah Mujahid said. AFP.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees have been expelled to their home country since a Nov. 1 deadline last year as part of a government drive to crack down on terrorism.
according to Radio PakistanAkram stressed that Afghanistan’s goals of socio-economic development cannot be achieved as long as terrorist organisations such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-K) continue to operate.
“The Afghan Interim Government (AIG) is fighting Daesh (IS-K) and has made some progress, but there are many other terrorist groups present in Afghanistan,” he said.
“Al-Qaeda, TTP, ETIM, IMU — against all these groups, the AIG must take effective and sustained action, including in compliance with several Security Council resolutions,” he said, stressing that the TTP poses the most direct and serious threat to Pakistan.
“The TTP and its allies have conducted numerous cross-border attacks into Pakistan resulting in hundreds of civilian and military casualties.”
Akram said despite Pakistan’s repeated requests to Afghanistan to take steps against the TTP, “no meaningful steps have been taken.”
He stressed that safe havens for the TTP still exist along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, enabling it to carry out attacks, including the killing of a Chinese engineer working on the Das hydroelectric project earlier this year.
Akram called on the UN Security Council to ask the Afghan government to sever ties with the TTP, disarm it and hand over captured TTP leaders to Pakistan.
“The UN should also investigate how the TTP acquired advanced weaponry and its sources of funding, including external sources, that allow it to sustain up to 50,000 TTP fighters and their families,” he added.
The Ambassador reminded the Security Council of its obligations towards the Afghan people who have suffered the effects of terrorism and are in need of humanitarian assistance.
