Pakistan’s Ambassador to United States Aizaz Chaudhry, in an interview with BBC Urdu, has said that Pakistan wants to send Haqqani network and Taliban back to Afghanistan so they can participate in national politics there.
Aizaz Chaudhry, responding to a question regarding allegations Pakistan providing safe haven to Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network, dismissed such accusations, saying if the United States has any doubt and have any information they must share with Islamabad because Pakistan itself wanted to eliminate them.
“Our position is that we want to eliminate them (terrorists); we do not want Haqqani network and Taliban on Pakistani soil. We are pressurizing them to return to Afghanistan because it is their homeland, and urging them to take part in political activities over there as their stay in Pakistan is totally unacceptable,” stated Aizaz.
He went on to state that according to the information acquired, these banned outfits have 43 percent occupation of Afghani land. Hence, it is needless that they stay in Pakistan. However, they do have close relations with some Afghan refugees in Pakistan, which is why Islamabad wants to repatriate them as well.
Aizaz Chaudhry added that the ‘Afghan refugees have now become a threat to Pakistan’s security as terrorist outfits were recruiting youth from them, therefore, Pakistan also wants repatriation of Afghan refugees besides safeguarding the border, making it difficult for miscreants to travel across it.’
Intelligence sharing with United States
In response to a question regarding the exchange of intelligence sharing with US and military cooperation, Aizaz said, ‘Both Pakistan and US are in contact with each other, including that of intelligence sharing on the working level.”
“We have to keep communication open besides cooperation on intelligence sharing which is at working level till now. Talks with officials are underway,” Aizaz revealed.
It is to be mentioned here that only a few days ago, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir had said that the exchange of intelligence sharing and military cooperation with the United States has been suspended.
Khurram Dastgir’s statement was released from the government’s official Twitter handle, while Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Dr. Faisal, in weekly briefing, dubbed the military cooperation and the exchange of intelligence sharing as an imperative.
When asked about US’ statement against Pakistan, Aizaz expressed utter surprise. According to him, negotiations and dialogues were being carried out between the two countries for six months and the visit of two US ministers to Pakistan was part of it.
“We were discussing mutual grounds where both can work together. Now we are hoping that we can work in collaboration towards achieving mutual targets set by US for Afghanistan.”
Pakistan-US ties deteriorated when President Donald Trump tweeted Pakistan’s inability to wipe out terrorists even after taking billions of dollars as aid from America.
