Pakistan

Afghanistan to demand arrest, expulsion of Taliban leaders from Pakistan: sources

Source says Afghan delegation will visit Pakistan on Thursday to discuss 'non-paper' issued by Afghan govt

Tahir Khan August 12, 2015

PHOTO: REUTERS

ISLAMABAD: An Afghan delegation will visit Pakistan on Thursday to demand the arrest and expulsion of Taliban leaders from its soil, sources privy to the development told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

“Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani will lead a high-level delegation to Pakistan on Thursday,” a source said. Afghan Defence Minister Masoom Stanekzai is likely to be a part of the delegation.

A source said the focus of the discussion would be a ‘non-paper’ presented by the Afghan government to Pakistan.

Read: Volte-face: Kabul hits out at Islamabad over uptick in violence

“Afghan government wants a response to the non-paper,” the source further added, explaining the reason behind the delegation’s visit.

The non-paper demands that Pakistan take action against Afghan Taliban on its soil, according to the source.

“Pakistan should not allow injured Taliban to be treated in Pakistani hospitals,” the non-paper states, the source added. Further, the non-paper also demands Pakistan to block sources of financial funding to Afghan Taliban.

Read: Ghani’s allegations: Pakistan reiterates commitment to peace in Afghanistan

The visit comes after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said a delegation would travel to Pakistan on Thursday to “seriously” discuss the peace process. The move came after Ghani accused Pakistan on Monday of sending ‘messages of war’ and harbouring bombmaking camps, after a wave of devastating blasts in Kabul killed at least 56 people. Ghani’s outburst came after he spoke to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by the telephone to discuss the possibility of resumption of peace process between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban.

However, Pakistan has denied Afghan accusations of harbouring Taliban militants.

The first face-to-face talks aimed at ending the 14-year insurgency took place last month between the Afghan government and the Taliban in the hill town of Murree. The Taliban distanced themselves from a second round of talks scheduled for the end of July, after the announcement of Mullah Omar’s death.

However, Ghani did not entirely shut the door on resuming dialogue with the Taliban if it stopped the violence. “We will make peace only with those who believe in the meaning of being a human, Muslim and Afghan and who do not destroy their own country on order from foreign masters,” he said on Monday.

COMMENTS (10)

ajeet | 9 years ago | Reply @naderm Israelis don't belong to religion of peace, so they value education. The only Muslim countries having high growth are oil rich or at least somewhat secular like Turkey and Malaysia.

Zahid | 9 years ago | Reply Speaking Hamid Karzai lang Hamid Karzai and Indian are behind all now take back your Afghan people from here and stop blame game

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khan | 9 years ago | Reply Its simple afghan gov do not want stakeholders(Taliban) in the power, peace talks was going fine and then they killed their own people to blame taliban, and blame us

shabana khan | 9 years ago | Reply in my opinion send all afghan refugees to afghanistan, and say to afghan government to take care of your own citizens, when there are no afghans, there will b no taliban inpakistan, when musharf want to fence the borders, afghan were against of it, when pakistan made trench on border afghan are against of it, when pakistan want to send back afghans, afghan government always approached UNO to stop pakistan from sending afghan back to their own country, Afghanistan is now not one state it is divided among pashtun, tajik and uzbak and all of them fought against each other and killed million of their own people, now they all are adjusted by USA in one afghan government, every one is considering him self the king of afghan, either he may b abdullah or dostum snd ghani

M.A Ansari | 9 years ago | Reply Ok Hand over Mullah Fazlullah and other TTP leaders.

JJ | 9 years ago | Reply The commentators are forgetting one crucially important point and that is-----how the millions of Pakistani Pashtun would react and this is the fact that make Pakistan Aghanistan situation different from the Israeli one. Just look there are no Israelis living in the Arab countries or in its neighborhood. The comparison is wrong and could be detrimental to Pakistan.

straightshooter | 9 years ago | Reply As long as we do not forcibly repatriate all undocumented Afghans back, this attitude from our neighbours will continue.

khan | 9 years ago | Reply Good, while you are here in Pakistan, please take back all of your citizens staying as refugees, we had enough of them. You are suppose to be a proud Aghans, take your people from here and settle them in their respective areas.

Indra | 9 years ago | Reply The Afghanistan leadership have a lot to learn.

nadeem | 9 years ago | Reply Dejavu. We have been here before. And like before, talks will go nowhere. Why can't Pakistan just forget about Afghanistan (even with the risk of India taking over that country), and focus on our internal issues. Israel does this quite successfully. All neighbors on its entire periphery are hostile, and will always remain hostile. Israel plans based on this reality and its education, healthcare, trade, commerce, and standard of living are all of high standard. The hostile neighbors will never cross the border due to the nuclear deterrent, case closed. We too should just accept that the Afghan border and Indian border will always remain hostile, but the nuclear deterrent will prevent them from coming over, and then plan on improving the one thing that really matters: the quality of life of ordinary Pakistani citizens. If Israel can do it in the face of global hostility, why can't we do it with only two crazies in our neighborhood?

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