Germany has very strongly reacted to the presence of an Afghan Taliban official at a mosque in one of its cities, Cologne, with the country’s interior minister demanding explanations from the Turkish organization running the site.
The Afghan official, who was identified as Abdul Bari Qamar, attracted German government’s ire after he attended the mosque to speak at a conference organized by an Afghan association in Cologne. “No one should offer radicals a platform in Germany,” Germany’s interior minister was quoted as saying by global media.
Unfortunately though, an answer to the question whether or not the Afghan official deserved such rebuke from Germany would be in the affirmative because of a variety of reasons. Ironically, the Taliban learnt nothing from their isolation over the past two years.
Little do they realize that that they cannot dictate terms when the entire country is on the verge of a major humanitarian crisis. That the current rulers of Afghanistan are so ungrateful for everything Pakistan did is a grim reality.
Their approach to Pakistan is strongly characterized by shameless hypocrisy as they have been providing anti-Pakistan militants of different hues, particularly Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with sustenance, shelter and modern weaponry the US-led NATO forces had left behind upon their exit from this country two years ago.
The situation has forced Pakistan to revisit its policy in relation to Afghanistan in recent months. One of which had stipulated expulsion of all illegal Afghans from Pakistan.
It was only yesterday that the Balochistan caretaker government said that if there was no let up in militant activity from Afghanistan, Pakistan would “go into terrorist hideouts and teach them a lesson”.
The growing belligerence of the rulers in Kabul against Pakistan in recent weeks and months was required to be challenged immediately. In my view, we, as a nation, must put our full weight behind the caretaker government’s decisions that it has been taking in relation to country’s relationship with Afghanistan.
The government must not take any flexible approach to a seemingly profound challenge that the Afghan rulers are posing to country’s security and sovereignty for quite some time.
Nasrullah Khatak, (Peshawar)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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