Sartaj Aziz rejects impression that Pakistan controls Afghan Taliban

“Absolutely, it is”, Mr Kirby said when asked to comment on Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz’s recent statement that the relationship between the United States and Pakistan has been under stress for the past three months.

Addressing the fifth round of Pakistan-Afghanistan dialogue organized by Regional Peace Institute, Aziz said that QCG comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, US and China, has been making joint efforts for reviving direct talks between the Afghan Government and Taliban but Taliban have not yet responded positively to these efforts.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, the ministry’s top bureaucrat, said efforts to persuade the Taliban to talk directly to the Kabul government could only bear fruit if the Afghan army stopped the Taliban from gaining the upper hand.

Like Muzhdah, many others in the South Asian country believe that Hekmatyar is joining the peace process only to attempt taking absolute control of his party, which has had strong support base among Pashto speaking Afghans during the country’s war against former Soviet Union and later during Afghanistan’s civil war.

Aziz urged Kabul to have a clear and positive response for the Afghan Taliban.

Official sources said special envoys of China and the U.S. and senior officials of Pakistan and Afghanistan were expected to attend the meeting schedule on May 18 in Islamabad.

The QCG strongly condemned the April 19 terrorist attack in Kabul and underscored that those who perpetrate such acts of terrorism should be ready to face consequences of their actions.

Zakaria said Pakistan also has serious concerns about India’s interceptor missile test on Wednesday and will take all necessary measures to augment its defence capabilities. Such an impression breeds unrealistic expectations from Pakistan.

The minister said while the world was dealing with the Syrian crisis and its global ramifications, no country in the world could understand better than Pakistan the implications of refugee crisis and its ramifications for domestic as well worldwide peace and stability. “We demand the implementation of Islamic law in Afghanistan and the departure of all foreign forces”.

He said around 24,000 people from Afghanistan crossed into Pakistan from Khyber Agency alone per day and majority of them travelled without any legal documentation. Pakistan is faithfully implementing this agreement. Iran had strong stakes in seeing a stable neighbour and hence wanted to play a constructive role like it did during the Bonn conference in late 2001, when the country broke a stalemate over the composition of Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban government. “However, the process leading to that goal needs patience and time”.

To this end, infrastructure, communications, road and rail links are essential. We believe that the dream of an inter-connected and economically integrated region can not be realized without a peaceful Afghanistan.