Pakistan urges world community to recognize Afghanistan’s ‘new ground realities’

Pakistan urges world community to recognize Afghanistan's 'new ground realities'

NEW YORK, Sep 13 (APP): Pakistan’s UN Ambassador, Munir Akram, has urged the international community, especially neighbouring countries, to acknowledge the “new ground realities” in Afghanistan and continue to support Afghan efforts to form an inclusive government.

“The Afghans must be encouraged to evolve their own political arrangements,” he wrote in an opinion piece in Newsweek, a widely read American magazine.

“History bears testimony that external solutions cannot be imposed on the Afghan people,” the Pakistani envoy wrote in the op-ed titled: Roadmap for Stability in Afghanistan.

“Positive engagement rather than coercion will help achieve the desired goals,” he added.

Ambassador Akram said peace and stability in Afghanistan, which was at a crucial crossroad, was contingent on a roadmap that must consist of three elements:

— Ensuring urgent humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people and helping revive the Afghan economy;

— encouraging the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan, reflective of its complex ethnic and current political realities; and,

— the development of a comprehensive and coordinated plan of action to neutralize the threat posed by terrorism flowing from Afghanistan to its neighbours or other countries.

Pakistan, he said, will play its part, having already established a “humanitarian air bridge” for supplies of essential food and medical items to Afghanistan in coordination with relevant U.N. agencies.

“The international community must also step up to the plate,” he said, welcoming the UN Secretary-General’s decision to convene a high-level ministerial meeting on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, which was held in Geneva today.

“We hope that the meeting will galvanize support for a fully financed humanitarian response plan to meet the basic and essential needs of the Afghan people including the millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran whose welfare is a shared responsibility of the international community.”

For Pakistan, Ambassador Akram said, restoring peace in Afghanistan is an imperative, pointing out that 40 years of war there have also had severe “regressive and disruptive” impacts on Pakistan’s economy and society.

After Afghanistan, he wrote it is Pakistan which suffered the most in the so-called “War on Terror,” with 80,000 of our people killed in terrorist attacks and $150 billion in economic damage.

“Peace and stability in Afghanistan will be enormously beneficial to its people and to Pakistan, opening the possibilities of connectivity and trade for all the countries of Central Asia among themselves and with the world.”

The international community must not exonerate itself from the responsibility to help in restoring peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan, whose political or economic collapse, he said, will result in continuing conflict and a humanitarian crisis that would engulf its neighbours, Europe and beyond with a torrent of refugees.

As Afghanistan stabilizes, the Pakistani envoy hoped the Taliban’s commitment not to allow Afghan soil to be used for terrorism against any neighbouring or other country should be transformed into practical actions to neutralize terrorist groups like Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), ISIS/Da’esh, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and others, with the cooperation and support of the international community.

“For their cooperation in such efforts, the Taliban are no doubt likely to demand fulfillment of the promise to ‘de-list’ them from the 1988 Security Council sanctions list.”

Pakistan urges world community to recognize Afghanistan's 'new ground realities'

By Shafek Koreshe

A Senior Journalist serving as Director Digital News for the Associated Press of Pakistan; with 30 years experience in covering major national, international news stories, well-traveled; covered summits, conflict zones and special assignments.

APP Services