Pakistan, she said stood ready to assist the Afghan reconciliation process and had refrained from responding to allegations from certain Afghan quarters. “A specific date – 31 July – was set for the second round but it was derailed due to a spike in violence in Afghanistan”, she added.
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Reconciliation and dialogue, she said, had to be between the Afghans themselves and “owned and conducted by Afghans”. “We have declared that Afghanistan’s enemies are also enemies of Pakistan”, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.
Acting US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Jarrett Blanc had after the conclusion of his visit to Kabul and Islamabad earlier this week said that it was for the Taliban to decide whether or not they wanted to return to dialogue.
While external parties could play a role in facilitating Afghanistan reconciliation they “cannot impose” a solution, she said.
Speaking at a press conference here on Friday, Afghan Muhajireen Shura Chairman Baryaley Miankhel, Afghan Students Federal President Ibrahim Zazai and known elder Haji Dost Mohammad said that the Afghan government had not taken any step for the well-being of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
“My country’s priority was, and remains, to defeat the terrorists it is itself confronting”, the Pakistani envoy told delegates sitting around the Council’s horseshoe table.
“Our military campaign, Zarb e Azb, and Pakistan’s multi-dimensional National Action Plan, have degraded these terrorist groups and flushed out and eliminated those trying to use our soil for their violent agendas”, she said, adding that their infrastructure in North Waziristan and adjacent areas has been destroyed, and the few remaining hideouts in Shawal valley and other isolated redoubts were under consistent attack.
“Pakistan will convey to Afghanistan that it will no more tolerate such attacks emanating from its soil”, said the official without going into details.
However, the official said Islamabad was still seeking a cooperative relation with Kabul and hoped that the Afghan administration will reciprocate Pakistan’s efforts to fight the menace of terrorism.
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Pakistan and Afghanistan have racked a pile of assentions that guaranteed to dramatically multiply cross-fringe exchange, authorities said, as monetary binds seen as key to local security succumb to competition and suspicion.
