Unprecedented call: Achakzai urges Afghan Taliban to join Pashtun struggle

Says another war looms large on the horizon

QUETTA: A Pashtun nationalist leader who recently met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has made an unprecedented appeal to all Pashtun leaders – including Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor – to join hands for the ‘dignity of the Pashtun nation’.

“I’ve told Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Aftab Sherpao, Asfandyar Wali and others that they have survived three assassination attempts and they might not be lucky enough next time. Now is the time to join our heads as another war is looming large on the horizon,” Mehmood Khan Achakzai, the head of the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), told a huge gathering at the Sadiq Shaheed football ground in Quetta on Wednesday.



The event was organised to mark the 42nd death anniversary of his father and PkMAP founder Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai.

Achakzai would not explain the ‘imminent war’ he referred to – but said only unity of Pashtun leaders could help protect the dignity of the Pashtun nation in this war. “We Pashtun kill rivals when our beloved is murdered. And we kill people when the sanctity of our home is violated,” he added.

The ‘rare appeal’ for unity of Pashtun leaders came days after Achakzai, together with Asfandyar, Aftab Sherpao and other Pakistani Pashtun political leaders met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace in Kabul. They reportedly convinced the Afghan leader to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN climate change summit in Paris.

“It is an injustice to occupy the land of others. And in Pashtun culture it is cowardice to remain silent when one’s land is occupied,” he said. “We will never accept the unjust annexation of southern Pashtoonkhwa. We will show how to restore it in its previous position,” he said apparently referring to the Pashtun areas merged with Balochistan in 1970. Achakzai said his party would not accept the foreign policy of Pakistan which allowed it to enter others’ house. He was parroting the allegations of Afghan officials that Pakistan was interfering in Afghanistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd,  2015.