Khan condemns US over Kabul ‘mess’
PRIME MINISTER SAYS PAKISTAN WON’T TAKE SIDES IN THE CONFLICT
PAKISTAN’S prime minister Imran Khan accused the United States of seeing his country as useful only in the context of the “mess” it is leaving behind in Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting.
Washington had pressed Pakistan to use its influence over the Taliban to broker an elusive peace deal as the Taliban moved on Tuesday (17) to quickly restart the Afghan capital following their swift takeover of Kabul.
“Pakistan is just considered only to be useful in the context of somehow settling this mess which has been left behind after 20 years of trying to find a military solution when there was not one,” Khan told foreign journalists last week at his Islamabad home.
The Taliban led a pariah regime from 1996 to 2001, and were notorious for a
brutal rule in which girls could not go to school, women were barred from working in jobs that would put them in contact with men, and people were stoned to death.
US-led forces invaded following the September 11 attacks, in response to the Taliban giving sanctuary to Al-Qaeda, and toppled them.
The Taliban took effective control of the country last Sunday (15) when president Ashraf Ghani fled and the insurgents walked into Kabul with no opposition.
It capped a staggeringly fast rout of all cities in just 10 days, achieved with relatively little bloodshed, following two decades of war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
The collapse came after president Joe Biden withdrew US troops, under the false belief that the Afghan army – with billions of dollars in American funding and training – was strong enough to withstand the Taliban.
Washington has sent 6,000 troops to ensure the safe evacuation of embassy staff, as well as Afghans who worked as interpreters or in other support roles.
The United States will pull out its military by August 31, 20 years after toppling the Taliban government in 2001.
As the US leaves, the Taliban today controls more territory than at any point since then.
Kabul and several Western governments say Pakistan’s support for the insurgent group allowed it to weather the war.
The charge of supporting the Taliban despite being a US ally has long been a sore point between Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan denies supporting the Taliban.
Khan said Islamabad was not taking sides in Afghanistan. “I think that the Americans have decided that India is their strategic partner now, and I think that’s why there’s a different way of treating Pakistan now,” he said.
Pakistan and India currently have minimal diplomatic relations.
A political settlement in Afghanistan was looking difficult under current conditions, Khan added. He said he tried to persuade Taliban leaders when they were visiting Pakistan to reach a settlement.
“The condition is that as long as Ashraf Ghani is there, we (Taliban) are not going to talk to the Afghan government,” Khan quoted the Taliban leaders as telling him.
Peace talks started last September but made no substantive progress.
Khan said Pakistan had “made it very clear” that it does not want any American military bases in Pakistan after US forces exit Afghanistan.