TTP, Pakistan and Afghanistan

           “Action against TTP, this is our only demand from the Afghan government,” Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said these words while addressing a press conference yesterday. The background of this demand is not hidden from anyone. Afghanistan has faced prolonged aggression and systematic military slaughter by two world powers in the last five decades, while the Afghan nation has defeated both the aggressor powers by putting up exemplary resistance. Throughout this entire period, the sympathies of the people of Pakistan have been completely with the Afghans who resisted external aggression, while the Pakistani nation has generously hosted more than four million Afghan citizens who were forced to leave their homes during this long period of trial, considering it their religious and national duty, and they have remained in Pakistan with complete freedom and access to housing, business and all other necessary facilities as if they were in their own homeland.

              On this basis, it was expected that after the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and the coming to power of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the organization that resisted them, the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan would be free from all kinds of tension and conflicts, and the two countries, connected by faith, history, geography and neighborly ties, would establish deep ties in every sphere of life, becoming an example of one soul, two forms, but on the contrary, what happened was that the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a terrorist organization supported by the Modi government of India and involved in terrorist acts in Pakistan, got safe havens in Afghanistan and serious acts of terrorism started happening in Pakistan day by day. In Balochistan too, the Baloch Liberation Army, which is sponsored by India and according to some evidence, also by Israel, also got facilities to organize terrorist acts in Pakistan on the soil of Afghanistan. In the context of this historical background and unconfirmed reports of Pakistan’s drone strikes in Afghanistan and the Afghan government’s demarche to the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told a press conference at the Foreign Office on Friday that both Pakistan and China have expressed their security concerns in recent meetings with Afghan officials. He said that we clearly said in these talks that either the Kabul government should take decisive action against the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or hand them over to us. The Foreign Minister pointed out the fact that the Afghan government has included hundreds of TTP supporters in its administration. He revealed that during a bilateral meeting with Acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul, it was informed that Afghanistan has set up 700 border posts to prevent cross-border infiltration. The Foreign Minister said, “I do not doubt their intentions nor has there been any resistance from the Afghan side to our proposals for action against the TTP. We had only one demand: action against the TTP. "In fact, by accepting this demand of Pakistan, the Afghan government can not only play a decisive role in ridding the region of tension and terrorism, but also, after that, exemplary relations can be established between the two countries that open new avenues for development in every sphere of life and lasting peace and stability can be established."