Premature to comment on Afghanistan caretaker government: minister

ISLAMABAD: A day after the Taliban announced the formation of an interim setup to rule Afghanistan, Pakistan Wednesday said it was “not appropriate” to comment at this stage on the government that also featured individuals on United Nations sanctions and terror lists.

“We should wait a while, it is not appropriate to comment [on the development] at this time,” Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry told BBC.

The Taliban announced key posts for their new government on Tuesday, appointing Mohammad Hassan Akhund as the prime minister while group co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar will be his deputy.

While Pakistan is yet to comment on the formation of the government, Islamabad is hosting today a key virtual meeting of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries to discuss the situation in the country ravaged by decades of war and internal rifts.

Responding to a question pertaining to the recent visit to Kabul of intelligence chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, a development discussed by the Western press to the extent of blowing it out of proportion, Chaudhry recalled the secret April visit to Afghanistan of Central Intelligence Agency chief, William J. Burns, and his meeting with Baradar.

The minister said he learned of the meeting through the media, observing that in the recent past, Turkey and Qatar spy chiefs also visited Kabul.

In the absence of a formal government machinery [in Kabul], a framework was needed where both Pakistan and Afghanistan could discuss bilateral issues, he said.

“We have been facing serious problems with Afghanistan, including the expansion of ISIS, the refugee problem and the TTP’s [Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan] migration from Afghanistan.

“We have been in talks with the Taliban and Pakistan also facilitated their talks with the United States,” he recalled.

Chaudhry said Pakistan also assisted in the evacuations following the fall of Kabul in August and safely evacuated through special Pakistan International Airlines flights thousands of foreign nationals — a gesture that was appreciated by the global community.

The minister asserted there was no military solution to the Afghanistan question and recalled Pakistan had been trying, however unsuccessfully, to convince the world [to quit Afghanistan] as early as 2007.

“Had Pakistan’s advice been paid heed, the situation in Afghanistan today would have been [totally] different,” he said.

Pakistan lost 80,000 people in the so-called war on terror and suffered $150 billion in economic losses — all the while India consistently attempting to defame it through propaganda, the minister said.

He said fabricated reporting of the Indian press accusing Pakistan of participation in the Panjshir fighting was ludicrous.

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