PAKISTAN URGES GLOBAL COMMUNITY TO LOOK INTO ‘MELTDOWN’ OF AFGHAN FORCES

Tue 10 August 2021:

Instead of blaming Pakistan for the rapidly deteriorating situation, Pakistan said on Monday that the international community should investigate the “meltdown” of Afghan security forces in the face of Taliban offensives across Afghanistan, according to Reuters.

Taliban fighters have swiftly gained territory across Afghanistan since May, including six provincial capitals in the last three days, as international forces near a complete withdrawal from the country after 20 years of fighting.

“The capacity-building, the training, the equipment … where is it?” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi asked at a news conference, referring to resources spent by other countries, particularly the United States, on bolstering Afghan national forces.

“Issues of governance and the meltdown of Afghan national defence forces need to be looked into,” he said.

Pakistan cannot be held responsible for the failure of others, he said.

Kabul and several western governments say Pakistan’s support for the Taliban allowed it to weather 20 years of war after being pushed from power in 2001 by a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. The group today controls more territory that at any point since 2001, Reuters reported.

Pakistan denies supporting the Taliban. Qureshi said Islamabad was not taking sides in Afghanistan.

“The lack of will to fight, the capitulation that we are seeing in Afghanistan … can we be held responsible for that? No we cannot,” Qureshi said, adding that Pakistan supported a political solution to bring peace to Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

He said Pakistan had been instrumental in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table with the United States and facilitated the resultant agreement between the two in Doha last year.

Pakistan, Qureshi said, had also helped convene peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in September last year, which have since stalled.

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