Any wait-and-see approach on Afghanistan tantamount to abandonment: Moeed

• Published date: 08 October 2021
• Publication title: Regional Times

Calling any wait-and-see approach on Afghanistan to be tantamount to abandonment, Pakistan called for a holding a major donor conference to formulate immediate humanitarian and economic relief plans for averting risks of instability and terror threat to the entire world.

'A wait-and see approach, although more politically tenable for many countries, would be tantamount to abandonment… A starting point could be a major donor conference where regional players and Western countries sit together and draw up specific plans for immediate humanitarian and economic relief,' said Moeed Yusuf, Prime Minister's National Security Advisor.

In an article published in US-based journal Foreign Affairs Thursday, the NSA said President Joe Biden was right to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan and 'today, Afghanistan faces a choice: it can either walk the arduous path of peace or revert to civil unrest. The latter will have catastrophic repercussions for the Afghan people and spillover effects for the neighborhood and beyond.'

He said the spread of refugees, drugs, weapons, and transnational terrorism from a destabilized Afghanistan does not serve the interests of the Afghan people nor the rest of the world, most of all Pakistan.

He said as Pakistan can and will assist in pushing Afghanistan in a positive direction, it alone cannot guarantee the outcomes we all desire.

He said Pakistan does not wield any extraordinary influence over the new rulers in Kabul, as both monetary assistance and legitimacy for the Taliban can only come (or not) from the world's major powers.

'History will judge us very poorly if we do not create the most conducive possible environment to push them in a healthy direction-for the collective benefit of Afghans and the world.'

He said any failure to do so will leave Pakistan to bear the brunt of any negative spillover from Afghanistan. 'We have already carried more than our share of the burden,' he said referring to Pakistan's sacrifices in US-led war on terror.

Referring to Ashraf Ghani regime, he said it was clearly unable to sustain itself, and propping it up with billions more dollars would only have delayed its inevitable collapse.

He said apart from the Afghan people, Pakistan has been the greatest victim of the wars in Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion in 1979 and the subsequent U.S.-led military campaign after 9/11 were not of Pakistan's making. Yet our society, polity, and economy bore the brunt of the conflict over the last four decades.

In 2001, he said Pakistan joined the U.S. war on terrorism against the very same actors who were hailed as freedom fighters when Washington and Islamabad together trained and backed them to defeat the Soviets in the 1980s. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States issued an ultimatum to Pakistan's military dictator General Pervez Musharraf that he was either 'with us or against us.' Under pressure, he provided the United States and its partners with virtually unconditional support, including access to our airbases, ground and air...