Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Maleeha Lodhi on Saturday emphasised that peace in Afghanistan cannot be
restored by the continuing resort to military force. She said neither
Kabul and the Nato coalition, nor the Afghan Taliban, could impose a
military solution on each other.
“The promotion of a
political settlement and the pursuit of a military solution are mutually
incompatible. You cannot kill and talk at the same time,” the Pakistani
envoy told the UN Security Council during an open debate on the
situation in Afghanistan.
“Another resort to the
military option will not produce a result different from the past. It
will not break the impasse much less yield a political solution,” Lodhi
said, urging the Taliban to give up violence and stressing that the
other side, too, must display a genuine desire for dialogue.
She
said the violence and terrorism afflicting Afghanistan are the
consequences of foreign military interventions, occupation and an
imposed war.
Sustainable peace in Afghanistan is only
achievable through a negotiated end to the war, a course long advocated
by Pakistan, she said.
The envoy said 16 years of war,
waged by the world's most powerful forces against an "insurgency of
irregulars", had not yielded a military solution.
“This
failure cannot be explained away by alleging the existence of safe
havens for the insurgency across the border,” she said.
Denying
US allegations about the presence of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan,
she said such enclaves exist in areas of Afghanistan that are not under
government control.
“There are no such safe havens (in
Pakistan),” she said. “The only havens that exist for the insurgents and
for Daesh [militant Islamic State] and other terrorists are within the
40 per cent of Afghan territory which is outside the control of the
Afghan Government.”
Lodhi said apart from the conflict
between the Afghan government and the Taliban-led insurgency, a new
threat has emerged in Afghanistan: the presence of a conglomerate of
terrorists from various parts of the world which have all now adopted
the umbrella of Daesh.
“These terrorists are now located
in the 40pc of Afghan territory which, according to a recent Pentagon
report, is either out of Kabul's control or is contested. It appears
that Daesh's 'core', under pressure in Iraq and Syria, may be relocating
to these ungoverned spaces in Afghanistan,” she said.
Observing
that securing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and preventing
cross-border terrorism is essential for both the countries, the envoy
said this could be achieved only through constant vigilance, effective
management and real-time communication.
“Terrorists should not be allowed to provoke clashes between our border security forces.”
The
peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan are bound by mutual interdependence
and other ties, she said, noting that approximately 3 million Afghans
still reside in Pakistan.
To strengthen bilateral
relations, Pakistan had last month proposed a comprehensive 'Afghanistan
Pakistan Action Plan for Solidarity'.
"This action plan
aims to promote constructive and meaningful bilateral engagement
through establishment of working groups on political, economic,
military, intelligence and refugee issues," Lodhi said.
