Bilawal urges int’l community to help in capacity building of Afghan interim authorities to take on threats of terrorism
MUNICH, Feb 18 (SABAH): Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday urged the international community to help in capacity building of the Afghan interim authorities to take on threats of terrorism.
The foreign minister was taking part in a panel discussion in Munich Security Conference.
Bilawal Bhutto said that the international community wanted the Afghan interim government to live up to its obligations and commitments in areas like women education, all-inclusive government and tackling of potential threats from terrorism, emanating from terrorist groups of Daesh, TTP and Al Qaeda.
The foreign minister said that if this issue was not taken seriously, the terrorist groups could conduct terrorist activities from Afghanistan as had been witnessed recently from the incidents in Pakistan. The interim government neither had a standing army, a counter-terrorism force and even a border force, nor have the capacity, he opined.
Bilawal Bhutto said the global community should convince the Afghan interim government to take on the threat of terrorism and demonstrate its will. Terrorism not only posed threat to immediate neighbors of Afghanistan but also to the West, he cautioned.
Pakistan had helped Afghanistan in the past and would continue to do so as it had hosted the largest number of Afghan refugees on its soil, he said, adding that the international community could not wash their hands and turn away from Afghanistan.
He stressed that the world should continue its humanitarian support, unfreeze Afghan’s assets and engage with the Taliban, society and the women.
The foreign minister reiterated that a peaceful Afghanistan was vital for the stability of the region and the international community must play its role in this regard. The Afghan interim government had assured to eradicate terrorism from its soil, he added.
The foreign minister also elaborated that the continuation of economic activities and progress in the war-weary Afghanistan was must for peace and stability and would help the interim Afghan authorities to run the affairs of the country.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that it would not take much time for terrorism to go to other places beyond Pakistan if the interim Afghan government did not demonstrate the “will and capacity” to take on militant groups operating from its territory.
The PPP chairman said the most important issue regarding Afghanistan in the region was the “security and terrorist threat emanating out” of the country, adding that there was a whole “alphabet soup” of terrorist organisations that were based out of Afghanistan.
He rued that not enough seriousness was paid to the issue by the international community or the Afghan government.
“The concern is that if we and the interim government don’t take these groups seriously and they don’t demonstrate the will and the capacity to take on terrorist groups then they will conduct terrorist activities in the region first — we are already witnessing an uptick in terrorist activity in Pakistan since the fall of Kabul — but it won’t be long before it reaches somewhere else.”
FM Bilawal Bhutto urged the international community to act “pre-actively” rather than reactively after the “nightmare scenario”.
“The key is to convince … the interim government in Afghanistan with the international community’s consensus, to take on terrorism within their borders and demonstrate the will to do so,” he added.
He further told world leaders to find a way to build the capacity for the interim Afghan government to help it build a standing army.
“They don’t have a standing army, nor a counter-terrorism force or even proper border security,” he said. “In that situation, even if they have the will, they don’t have the capacity to deal with this [terrorist] threat which is a problem, first for the imminent neighbours and then the international community”.
The foreign minister cited how “very little attention” was given to Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul and the ongoing Ukraine war.
Bilawal gave an example of how banned militant groups such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Balochistan Liberation Army and Al Qaeda were operating from Afghanistan while the international community was not doing enough to contain the threat.
“A lot of my time is taken to convince Afghan authorities to take on terrorists and address my security challenges,” Bilawal said, emphasising that terrorist groups have more coordination in Afghanistan than “we all do”.
The foreign minister said Pakistan did not want to “invade Afghanistan and go in after them and repeat the mistakes of the past” so the best scenario was for the respective law-enforcing institutions in Afghanistan to become functional.
Bilawal Bhutto stressed that Pakistan would continue to help Afghanistan in any way it could and also called for opening the country’s banking channels, unfreezing its funds and building a “consensus based on Afghanistan’s realities”.