- Minister sees “irresponsible state” behind deteriorating situation.
- They have not yet emerged from a guerrilla mindset: Chaudhry.
- “This war will be won, and all this will end,” says minister.
Pakistan will maintain its current policy towards Afghanistan unless the Taliban abandon their “guerrilla mindset”, State Minister Talal Chaudhry said on Wednesday.
“Their [Taliban leadership’s] attitude towards us is quite different from what it is with the rest of the world,” the state minister said on Geo News’ programme “Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath”.
Following a series of deadly suicide blasts in Islamabad, Bajaur and Bannu — all of which were linked to terrorists operating from the Afghan soil — Pakistan struck Afghanistan’s Nangarhar and Paktika provinces overnight into Sunday.
Islamabad, which has repeatedly urged Kabul to prevent its soil from being used by terrorist organisations to carry out attacks, conducted intelligence-based strikes targeting seven terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), its affiliates, and the Daesh-Khorasan, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The state minister noted that the reason for the deteriorating situation is an irresponsible neighbour and an irresponsible state.
“A state, as they call themselves, but they have not yet emerged from a guerrilla mindset. We also tried to change their behaviour through dialogue.”
“Now, with the practical steps we are taking, we want to change their behaviour and see them in the form of a state,” the minister noted.
While elaborating that the Taliban’s attitude towards Pakistan is different, the minister said that the group’s supreme leader Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada issues multiple fatwas in a day if there are issues concerning women.
“But if there is an attack on Pakistan’s mosques, Imambargahs, markets, innocent women, or a bus of school children, there is complete silence,” he stressed.
The ideal solution was for the issue to be resolved through dialogue; However, the pattern the government has now adopted will persist if the Taliban’s guerrilla mindset pattern continues, he added.
“And this war will be won, and all this will end. If it is not resolved the straight way, then it will be completely ended by a hardline approach,” Chaudhry added.
After Pakistan’s strikes, the Afghan Taliban regime resorted to unprovoked firing along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border earlier this week in the Torkham and Tirah sub-sectors of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The aggression, a spokesperson for the prime minister said, was met with immediate and effective response by Pakistan’s security forces, which silenced the Afghan side.
Warning that “any further provocation will be responded to immediately and severely,” the PM’s spokesperson reaffirmed the country’s resolve to continue to “protect its citizens and guard its territorial integrity”.
