President calls on Pakistan to fight Taliban militants

KABUL — After courting Pakistan for more than a year, President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan changed course Monday and warned that he would lodge a complaint with the U.N. Security Council if Pakistan refuses to take military action against Taliban leaders operating from its soil to wage an increasingly deadly insurgency across Afghanistan.

Ghani has tried to persuade Pakistan’s leadership, particularly its powerful military, to bring the insurgent leaders to the negotiating table. But an increase in Taliban violence, including a brutal attack last week in the heart of Kabul that killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 300, has forced the Afghan president to effectively end the negotiations, which have been a cornerstone effort of his troubled time in office.

“I want to make it clear that we do not expect Pakistan to bring the Taliban to talks,” Ghani said Monday in a rare joint session of the two houses of the Afghan parliament. “If we do not see a change ... we will be forced to turn to the U.N. Security Council and launch serious diplomatic efforts.”

In talks over the past year that also involved the United States and China, Pakistan had pledged “in writing” to go after Taliban leaders who refused to join the peace process, Ghani said.

Despite promises from Pakistan to bring Taliban leaders to talks in the hopes of ending the long conflict, the peace efforts seem to have gone nowhere. The insurgency has begun another spring offensive, which promises to be bloodier than in years past.

In his address Monday, Ghani broke with the former administration’s tactic of describing the Taliban as discontented brothers in the hopes of urging them to talks. Ghani called the insurgents terrorists who “take pleasure in the torn-up bodies of our innocents,” and their leaders “slavelike” and involved in narcotics mafias.

The Taliban responded with posts on Twitter during Ghani’s address.

“The nation is not blind — it realizes who is a slave, and who is a hireling,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, posting a picture of government officials listening to the former commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell. “We will continue fighting until the occupation is ended.”