Pakistan hopes ‘Taliban won’t allow TTP to operate in Afghanistan’

Interior minister reiterates Islamabad will not allow its soil to be used against the neighbouring country

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid has said that Islamabad is expecting that the Afghan Taliban will not allow terrorists groups like TTP to carry out activities against Pakistan.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan has categorically said that we [Pakistan] will not give any bases to the United States to use against Afghanistan,” he said while speaking to the media in Islamabad on Saturday.

“...But we also expect from [Afghan] Taliban that they will not allow TTP [Tehreek-e-Pakistan Taliban] and other elements to carry out any activity which causes harm to the lives and property of Pakistani people,” he said.

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PM Imran earlier this week had repeated his firm stance of not providing any bases to the US, saying that "Islamabad is ready to be a partner for peace in Afghanistan with Washington because both the countries wanted stability, development and denial of terrorists’ havens there".

Writing in The Washington Post, the prime minister expressed the apprehension that Pakistan had already paid a very high price of instability in Afghanistan and if the country agrees to host US bases, from which to bomb Afghanistan, and an Afghan civil war ensued, Pakistan would be targeted for revenge by terrorists again.

Rashid said the 88 per cent fencing across the Pak-Afghan border has been completed and the rest is expected to be finished by next month.

Likewise, the fencing along the Iranian border would be completed by the end of this year, he added.

Rashid said the fencing along the borders would help to stop illegal movement and smuggling.