Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi Thursday said with members of the international community and the Taliban at the same platform, the upcoming Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Islamabad would prove a stepping stone towards finding solution to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
The foreign minister, flanked by Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry in an interaction with senior journalists and anchorpersons, said by hosting the event, Pakistan was playing a positive role by bridging the communication gap between the world and the Taliban. Qureshi confirmed that a Taliban delegation headed by the interim foreign minister would participate in the upcoming moot besides the Special Representatives of the United States, Russia, and China. Apart from P5 countries, the representatives of Germany, Canada, Australia and Japan had also been invited, he added.
He said Pakistan wanted the Taliban to listen to the concerns of the international community relating to human rights in particular.
He said Pakistan was not spokesperson for the Taliban, but only wanted to bring the stakeholders to the OIC platform to directly get across their points of view. The foreign minister said the focus of Pakistan was improvement in the lives of Afghan people who faced conflict for decades.
“We are not limiting ourselves to any particular faction or group in Afghanistan,” he said and dismissed the impression that holding the OIC conference on Afghanistan was a step towards recognizing the government. Qureshi said the moot offered a “rare opportunity for peace and stability in Afghanistan.” “The whole region will benefit if things go right. But in case of situation moving the wrong way, all gains will come to a naught,” he warned. Qureshi recalled that during his meetings with his counterparts in New York and the recent meeting with the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell in Brussels, he had discussed in detail that Afghanistan would be facing a tough situation if the EU did not take any action.
He mentioned that several ambassadors who had served in Afghanistan including Ryan Crocker, former Commander of ISAF Forces General John F. Campbell, Commander US Central Command and Director CIA General David Petraeus, and Secretary State for Economic and Business Affairs Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne were of the view that international sanctions on Afghanistan should be reviewed immediately.
Qureshi said 75 percent of the budget of Afghanistan was dependent on external assistance and urged the international community to understand that any chaos and anarchy in the wake of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan would lead to the strengthening of terrorist organizations.
“All the efforts and foreign investment of 20 years in Afghanistan besides the loss of innocent lives will prove futile with the rise of a new wave of terrorism,” he said. He said the situation would not only affect Pakistan, but other countries of the region including Iran and Tajikistan, and even Europe as well. Also, the banking system of Afghanistan is not functioning at the moment, due to which overseas Afghanistan are unable to send their money to families back home, he said.
He said the UNDP and other international organizations had warned that in case urgent action was not taken, around 97 percent of Afghans would fall below the poverty line by mid-2022. According to World Food Programme, he said, only five percent of Afghan households had access to ample food, meaning 95 percent lacked the essential commodities. The foreign minister thanked the initiative of Saudi Arabia being the chair of OIC to call the Extraordinary Session on Afghanistan, to be attended by several important countries such as Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other Arab and African countries.
