ISLAMABAD: The United States has to “pull itself together” and deliver an aid package to Afghanistan or face the collapse of the war-ravaged country which would become a haven for Islamic State militants, the prime minister said.
In a pre-recorded interview with Middle East Eye, a London-based online news portal, released Monday Imran Khan said it is vital to Islamabad that Washington steps up to the challenge because Pakistan — where tens of thousands of people have died in conflict linked to the American “war on terror” — would once more pay a heavy price.
“It’s a really critical time and the US has to pull itself together because people in the United States are in a state of shock,” he said.
“They were imagining some sort of democracy, nation-building or liberated women, and suddenly they find the Taliban are back. There is so much anger and shock and surprise. Unless America takes the lead, we are worried that there will be chaos in Afghanistan and we will be most affected by that.”
The prime minister was speaking on the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, to oust the ruling Taliban in the aftermath of the deadly September 11 attacks.
Two decades later, Khan said, the US had no other option but to do everything it could to support the stable government in Afghanistan, because the Taliban was the only option for fighting Islamic State in the region — and to prevent the ascendency of hardline elements within the Taliban’s own ranks.
IS’s regional affiliate in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province, has fought against the Taliban and claimed responsibility for a number of recent deadly attacks, including the bombing of a Shi’ite mosque in the northern city of Kunduz on Friday in which dozens of worshippers were killed.
Khan said: “The world must engage with Afghanistan because if it pushes it away, within the Taliban movement there are hardliners, and it could easily go back to the Taliban of 2000 and that would be a disaster.”
The Taliban is still on the US Treasury sanctions designation list, effectively preventing the group from accessing more than $9 billion in US-held assets belonging to the Afghan Central Bank.
UN special representative to Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, warned last month the policy was likely to precipitate “a severe economic downturn that could throw many more millions into poverty and hunger, may generate a massive wave of refugees from Afghanistan, and indeed set Afghanistan back for generations.”
With half the population already below the poverty line, and 75 percent of the national budget dependent on foreign aid, sanctioning the Taliban would soon lead to a humanitarian disaster, Khan said.
“If they leave Afghanistan like this, my worry is that Afghanistan could easily revert back to 1989 when the Soviets and US left and over 200,000 Afghans died in the chaos,” he said, referring to the civil war that followed Soviet retreat from the country.
The interview was recorded ahead of the arrival in Islamabad of US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to meet Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the two officials discussed “the importance of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship and the way forward in Afghanistan”.
“Deputy Secretary Sherman emphasised the importance of a coordinated approach to Afghanistan and other issues vital to regional stability,” said Price.
Over the weekend, US officials also held talks with senior Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar.
“The two sides […] discussed the United States’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance, directly to the Afghan people,” said Price.
“The discussions were candid and professional with the U.S. delegation reiterating that the Taliban will be judged on its actions, not only its words.”
But Khan said Biden was not listening — the two leaders have still not spoken, he revealed.
Khan recalled he had warned Biden, John Kerry and Harry Reid — then all senators — in 2008 that they were creating a quagmire in Afghanistan for which there was no military solution. He said they did not listen.
Two years later Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, then chief of army staff, delivered the same message to US President Barack Obama.
“But unfortunately, they were led by their generals. And do you know what generals always say: give us more troops and more time.”
Khan was visibly angry when asked about suggestions that he had gloated about the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Speaking one day after the group took control of the capital, prompting thousands of people to attempt to leave the country, Khan said Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery”.
He responded: “We have been so relieved because we expected a bloodbath but what happened was a peaceful transfer of power. But we also felt we were blamed for this. Three hundred thousand [Afghan army] troops surrendered without a fight, so clearly we did not tell them to surrender.”
Asked whether the Taliban had formed an inclusive government, Khan admitted it was not inclusive, but observed the government was a transitional one.
He said he was working with neighbouring states, notably Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which have sizeable ethnic minorities inside Afghanistan, to encourage the Taliban to widen representation.
“They need an inclusive government because Afghanistan is a diverse society.”
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Khan stressed that the only bar to entry into government applied to members of what he called the “former regime“, which he accused of corruption.
One of the first things Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s spokesperson, did after the fall of Kabul was to reassure Afghan women that “our sisters and our men have the same rights”.
But Human Rights Watch has accused the group since taking the power of “implementing a massive rollback of human rights,” with universities closed, access to healthcare restricted and demonstrators beaten and threatened.
Khan said the Taliban should be given time: “They have made the right statements and have no other option. What else are we going to do if we sanction them? The best way is to incentivise them to walk the talk.
“But if you force them, I would imagine the nature of the people is such that they will push back and it would be counterproductive.”
He said there were clearly different currents within the movement and a lack of clear leadership on some issues.
Pakistan is currently engaged in delicate and politically sensitive negotiations with the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The TTP and the army have fought their own bloody conflict on the sidelines of the “war on terror”, with the loss of more than 80,000 lives — mostly civilians.
The TTP, which was driven out of the tribal areas five years ago, has since relaunched its campaign with renewed clashes with the army.
The TTP has made two conditions for a ceasefire – Sharia law in the tribal areas, and the release of prisoners. The Pakistan government insists only the constitution applies to these areas.
Khan told MEE the TTP consisted of 50 groups and that he was trying to reconcile those elements who were willing to talk.
“Now, we are trying to talk to those who can be reconciled because it’s from a position of strength. I always believed all insurgencies eventually end up on the dialogue table, like the IRA [Irish Republican Army] for instance,” he said, referring to the Northern Irish peace deal.
COST IN LIVES
He said the Taliban government in Afghanistan had told Pakistan that the TTP would not be allowed to launch attacks on Pakistan from inside Afghanistan.
He also recalled how Indian intelligence agencies supported these attacks under the former government in Kabul. “We now have to talk to those we can reconcile and [persuade to] give up their arms and live as normal citizens.”
Khan condemned the continued use of drones by the US in Afghanistan.
“It is the most insane way of fighting terrorism. Doing a drone attack on a village mud hut and expecting there will not be casualties. And a lot of time the drones targeted the wrong people.”
Asked whether Pakistan would allow the US to launch strikes targeting IS in Afghanistan from Pakistan, Khan said: “They don’t need a base here because we do not need to be part of a conflict again.”
He spoke passionately about the human and financial cost paid by Pakistan since the US-led attack on Afghanistan in 2001 and the country’s own connected conflict.
“No country paid such a heavy price as us. 80,000 Pakistanis died. The economy was devastated. $150 billion was lost to the economy. It was called the most dangerous place on earth. Three-and-a-half million people were internally displaced.”
Khan said it was too early to say what the regional effect of the US withdrawal would be.
But he said China was the emerging power that would step into the vacuum and had stood by Pakistan — a key recipient of Chinese investment as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road project — during its darkest recent days.
“Who was the country that came to help? We were going belly up. It was China that helped us. You always remember those who help you in the difficult times.”
INDIA DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM ISRAEL
India enjoyed the same kind of impunity within the international community over its attempts to change the demographic balance of occupied Kashmir that Israel has in the annexed Palestine territories, the prime minister said.
He accused India Prime Minister Narendra Modi of copying Israel’s playbook by allowing settlers to acquire land in the disputed territory, which has been claimed — and fought over — by both Pakistan and India since 1947.
Khan called Indian-occupied Kashmir an open prison. He accused India of breaching the Geneva Convention by changing the Indian constitution to end its autonomy.
In August 2019, Modi sent tens of thousands of additional troops into the Muslim-majority state, imposed a curfew and announced the abolition of Article 370 of the Indian constitution — which guaranteed autonomy to Kashmir for more than 70 years.
Khan told Middle East Eye that India had not been challenged more forcefully on the international stage because its western allies saw it as a bulwark against China.
But he said India had also benefited from a deepening strategic and military relationship with Israel, forged by Modi’s visit to the country in July 2017, and by then-Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s return visit to India the following year — after decades of diplomatic estrangement.
Talking about cricket, Imran said that the Indian cricket board is the richest cricket board in the world right now and controls world cricket.
The prime minister said that he has seen the evolution of Pakistan-England cricket ties over the years.
“I think that there is still this feeling in England that they do a great favour to play with countries like Pakistan,” he added. “One of the reasons is that, obviously, the money.”
The prime minister said that the BCCI is the richest cricket board in the world, adding that no other country would dare to do to India what England had done to Pakistan.
“Money is a big player now,” he said.
“For the players, as well as for the cricket boards. The money lies in India, so basically, India controls world cricket now.
“I mean, they do, whatever they say goes. No one would dare do that to India because they know that the sums involved, India can sort of produce much more money,” he added.
