Kabul should help reduce tensions

Pakistan should expect tensions with India to persist till May when elections there are to conclude

Now things are clear; nothing remains opaque. India engineered the Pulwama attack with the aim of killing two birds or several birds with one stone.

Ingenious! Or method in madness! The Indian government’s aim was to whip up religious passions within India by accusing Pakistan of facilitating the attack and then drag Afghanistan into the Pulwama affairs.

India has achieved both aims but at the cost of injecting a fresh dose of poison of hate in the region. Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zahid Nasrullah, said on Feb 19 that the Afghan peace talks could be affected if India resorted to violence after last week’s attack on its paramilitary troops in occupied Kashmir.

There was nothing wrong in the envoy’s statement as it only pointed out likely implications of the tragic Pulwama incident. This, however, prompted the Afghan Foreign Ministry to summon Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan the next day.

In a statement issued after the meeting with the Pakistani envoy, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said it deemed his comments to be” in contradiction with Pakistan’s commitments with regards to realising peace in Afghanistan.”

Also on Feb 19, a former deputy defence minister of Afghanistan said Nasrullah’s remarks would anger local government officials, saying it played into fears that the country’s civil war is a proxy for rivalries by regional powers.

The Afghan statement further said the government “once again calls on Pakistan to act upon its commitments with regards to Afghanistan, particularly in relation to peace and refrain from making irrelevant statements that do not help solve any problem.”

US President Donald Trump has said he expected India and Pakistan to get along instead of facing a horrible situation. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister has asked the UN to help defuse the situation. This indicates Pakistan’s desire for peace.

On Feb 19, a US official said challenges in South Asia would grow in 2019 because of elections in India and Afghanistan. So we should expect tensions with India to persist at least till May when elections there are to conclude.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2019.

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