Highlighting consequences: Karzai warns over ‘using’ extremism

Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is the consequence of safe havens on Pakistani soil: Karzai

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he hoped Malala Yousafzai’s shooting by the Taliban will convince Islamabad that using extremism as a tool against others was hurting Pakistan as well. “I hope this very bitter truth... has convinced our brothers and sisters, the officials in Pakistan... that (this strategy) is not in the interest of Pakistan,” he observed. Speaking at a joint press conference with visiting Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday, Karzai called on Islamabad to join him in an ‘honest’ fight against extremism, which he said threatened both nations equally. “The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is the consequence of safe havens on Pakistani soil”, he said, describing extremism as a snake which could turn and bite anyone who tried to use it against others.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2012.