PM Imran Khan said there is a need to “incentivize” the Taliban’s new administration to end current crises, rather controlling Afghanistan from the outside.
In an exclusive interview on the CNN program ‘Connect the World’ on Wednesday, host Becky Anderson asked Prime Minister Imran about apprehensions that the Taliban will not protect human rights, especially those of women and children.
“Where Afghanistan goes from here, I am afraid none of us can predict,” the premier responded. “We can hope and pray that there is peace after 40 years. That the Taliban, what they have said, that they want an inclusive government, they want women rights — in their own context, they want human rights; they have given amnesty so, so far what they have said [shows] clearly they want international acceptability.”
Prime Minister Imran Khan interview with CNN @PakPMO @ImranKhanPTI @BeckyCNN @CNNi #APPNews https://t.co/cDiBS3lhYB
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The prime minister said it was a “fallacy” that Afghanistan could be controlled from outside, saying history showed “no puppet government in Afghanistan is supported by the people.”
“So rather than sitting here and thinking that we can control them, we should incentivize them because this current government in Afghanistan clearly feels that without international aid and help they will not be able to stop this crisis. We […] should push them in the right direction.”
Afghanistan at ‘historic crossroads’
PM Khan said Afghanistan was as of now at a “historic crossroads”, and it could see peace after forty years if the Taliban pursued an inclusive government.
“But if it goes wrong, and which is what we are really worried about, it could go to chaos, the biggest humanitarian crisis, a huge refugee problem, unstable Afghanistan and […] the possibility of again terrorism from Afghanistan’s soil,” he added.
Discussing about concerns regarding women’s rights, Imran said it was a “mistake” to think someone from outside would give Afghan women their rights.
“Afghan women are strong. Give them time, they will get their rights,” he said. “You cannot impose women’s rights from abroad.”
‘Pakistan suffered after siding with US’
When asked by Anderson to confirm that Biden hadn’t called Imran since coming into office, the premier replied: “He is a busy man.”
“Pakistan is a major non-Nato ally and yet no call between you and the US president. Do you see this as punishment for supporting the Taliban while they were killing US troops?” the host asked.
Emphasizing that Pakistan suffered severely after siding with the US in the war in Afghanistan after 9/11, saying “at one point, there were 50 militant groups attacking our government.”
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During the 80s, he said, Pakistan joined the US against the Soviets and trained the Mujahedeen to do jihad against foreign occupation in Afghanistan.
“Fast forward to 9/11, US needs us in Afghanistan. George Bush asked Pakistan to help and he famously said, ‘We will not abandon Pakistan again.’ Pakistan joined the US war in Afghanistan. [If I was] the prime minister, I would never have done that,” he added.
He stated after the US invasion of Afghanistan, the same mujahedeen’s acts were considered “terrorism”.
As a result, “they turned against us. Then Pashtun nationalism kicked in the entire tribal belt of Pashtuns on our side of the border,” he added.
“So the jihadis turned against us, the Pashtuns turned against us, and the more we tried military operations in civilian areas, the more collateral damage [took place].”
On top of the militant groups’ violence, the Khan noted, there were 480 drone attacks by the US in Pakistan — “the only time a country has been attacked by its ally”.
‘Complete ignorance’
“It is complete ignorance,” Prime Minister Imran said when questioned about the reasons for the trust deficit between the West and Pakistan.
He said the Americans “did not understand what the Haqqani network was”, which he described as a Pashtun tribe living in Afghanistan.
At the time of the Afghan jihad in the 1980s, he said, Pakistan was hosting five million Afghan refugees, which included some Haqqanis. “And the Haqqanis were Mujahedeen who were fighting the Soviets. They were born in a Pakistani refugee camp.
Prime Minister Imran Khan interview with CNN @PakPMO @ImranKhanPTI @BeckyCNN @CNNi #APPNews Part-3 https://t.co/UvZXJDNqUH
— APP (@appcsocialmedia) September 15, 2021
“What they (Americans) were asking us was that we were supposed to check among three million Afghan refugees which ones were Taliban and which were not,” he added.
Replying to allegations that Pakistan’s intelligence was supporting and funding the Taliban through the Haqqani network, PM Khan said “the total budget of Pakistan is $50 billion for 220 million people. […] Did we have the capacity to fund another war [when] we can barely meet our own expenses?”
He clarified that “intelligence agencies’ job is to speak to everyone and have connections to everyone”.
“The question is: was Pakistan in a position to take military action against the Afghan Taliban when it was already being attacked from inside [by the] Pakistani Taliban?” he asked.
‘Appalling’ US relationship
Remarking on US-Pakistan ties, Prime Minister Imran said Islamabad’s relationship with Washington during the US occupation of Afghanistan was a “terrible” one.
The US funded Pakistan some $20 billion in civilian and military aid and “we were like a hired gun,” he added. But the people of Pakistani suffered due to bomb blasts and the nation lost $150 billion to the economy.
Prime Minister Imran said he would now like to see the US-Pakistan relationship to be “like the US has a relationship with India”, and not a “one-dimensional relationship where they are paying us to fight. We want a normal relationship.”
‘Refugees major concern’
PM Khan termed refugees as the “biggest concern” originating out of Afghanistan, saying Pakistan could not afford anymore because it was already hosting three million of them.
On the other hand, the worrisome part, he said, is terrorism. “We have three sets of terrorism. Terrorists in Afghanistan using the soil to attack us, ISIS, [and] Pakistani Taliban and the Baloch terrorists,” he added.
PM khan stressed that Pakistan was the country that would suffer the most if there was chaos in Afghanistan and stability was not attained.
