India Supports Peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan supporting Taliban: Afghan leader
On Wednesday, September 26, 2018 Afghan Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah said in his speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that those who are supporting Taliban need to be persuaded. Abdullah praised India’s support for Afghanistan and blamed Pakistan that there is no change in policies even after new government came into power.
Abdullah said in response to a Question, “One is that those who are supporting Taliban need to be persuaded and convinced or persuaded that they should stop support. And one country is key to that, which is Pakistan”.
He pointed at the failure of Pakistan government in bringing the terrorist groups on negotiating table, he said, “In the past they have made promises that they will bring the reconcilable Taliban to the negotiating table and put pressure on others. We have seen none in that sense. But still we are hopeful”.
Abdullah said that the groups who are killing civilians cannot serve any country’s interests; they will pursue their own agendas and not the agendas of the country which has helped them.
He said, “With Pakistan, we will continue our engagement with them with the hope that they will be convinced that these groups, the groups which are using ideology, but at the same time terror tactics and violence and killing civilians, will not serve any country’s interests”.
He added, “If there is one lesson in the past three decades that is that these groups have their own agendas. At the end of the day, they will pursue their own agenda rather than the agendas of the countries or country which has helped them”.
Top afghan leader hailed India’s support for Afghanistan in fight against terrorism and for peace and stability of the country.
Abdullah said, “India has been supporting Afghanistan in the past seventeen years and also when we were in the resistance against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. They were on the side of the resistance or official government of Afghanistan. They have continued with the same policy. And their offer to us is that you tell us your needs, we will see in the realm of our possibilities that how we can help, because stability in Afghanistan is in their interest, not insecurity in our country”.
