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EDITORIAL: Tensions have been mounting between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban government, leading every once in a while to clashes at the Torkham and Chaman border crossings. In the latest incident on Monday, the Torkham crossing was closed following an exchange of fire that went on for over an hour, causing injuries to one Pakistani soldier.

The Afghan authorities said the border had been closed for travel and transit trade because “Pakistan has not abided by its commitments”.

Though they did give any details according to media reports, the Kabul government was annoyed by an unannounced ban on the travel of Afghan patients seeking treatment in Pakistan.

The ban, apparently, has been placed to stop TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) terrorists from using the facility to enter Pakistan pretending to be Afghan citizens.

The TTP, an ally of the Afghan Taliban in their war against the US-led NATO forces, is known to have been enjoying their ideological brothers’ hospitality, who until recently also hosted several rounds of TTP ‘peace talks’ with Pakistan. The talks did not go anywhere, yet under a premature unannounced agreement a large number of TTP militants were allowed to come back to Pakistan to be reintegrated into this society.

Instead, they have used the opportunity to regroup in their previous base of operations in the tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and also activate their sleeper cells to launch terrorist attacks on the security forces, the police as well as civilians.

Commenting on these developments in an interview with German DW Urdu radio and US-based broadcaster CNBC during his stay in Munich to attend an international security conference, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that mixed signals from the Pakistan side were responsible for the Afghan Taliban’s inaction against the outlawed TTP.

While rightly describing the policy of negotiating with the TTP terrorists as appeasement, he blamed it on the previous PTI government, saying “following the fall of Kabul, the government that preceded ours started negotiating with these very same terrorist groups and without preconditions, such as disarmament of them [according to independent sources, however, the ‘return home’ agreement did include this key pre-condition but compliance was not ensured]”.

Indeed, PTI leader Imran Khan bears part of the responsibility for that appeasement policy. He still defends his decision to let these killers of more than 80,000 Pakistanis - including 132 children and 17 staff members of the Army Public School in Peshawar - come back, arguing that either all those men had to be killed or allowed to return and reintegrate into society.

The second was option taken that, as Bilawal put it, blew up in Pakistan’s face. As things go in Pakistan it also needs to be recognized that foreign and security policies are hardly the preserve of civilian governments.

Khan is blame-able for willingly supporting and owning up to a bad strategy based on sentiments of brotherhood and hopes of a rapprochement. The others involved are equally, if not more, responsible for the disastrous consequences their pacification policy has brought upon the people.

Now that the inevitable has happened, Pakistan should ask the Afghan Taliban to rein in their TTP friends (or counterparts from across the border) without any further loss of time. In fact, the Foreign Minister’s assertion at the security conference that the risks of armed fighting stemming from Afghan soil could affect the world has been noted with alarm by Kabul.

Taliban foreign ministry spokesman has issued a statement to iterate that his government would not allow its territory to be used against other countries, particularly its neighbours. And also that Pakistan should raise issues (of its concern) in private, not at public forums.

Let Islamabad and Rawalpindi take Afghan Taliban on their word and sit with them in private to talk about TTP terrorists’ surrender before the State.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

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