Afghanistan’s president took neighbor Pakistan’s new government to task over what he called Islamabad’s continued refusal to rein in terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in both South Asian nations.
Despite the lack of cooperation from Pakistan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani nevertheless told a Washington think tank Monday that despite string of recent spectacular attacks, Afghan troops with U.S. and NATO support are rolling back Taliban gains in the country.
“The Taliban are not in a winning position,” Mr. Ghani insisted, noting that Kabul remains in “total agreement” with the Trump administration’s strategy to pressure the country’s radical Islamist rebels to the bargaining table for peace talks.
“All wars must end politically,” the Afghan leader added, telling an audience at the John Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington by video hook-up that eventual reconciliation with the Taliban would be negotiated by Kabul not Washington, an approach backed by top U.S. national security officials.
“U.S. engagement is to ensure that talks with the Taliban result not in negotiations with Taliban but with talks, direct talks, between the Afghan government and the Taliban,” he said. The Taliban have long demanded direct negotiations with the U.S. as part of any peace deal.
On Pakistan, Mr. Ghani said that two months into the government of new Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, terror attacks by Pakistan-based terror groups have contributed to a spike in violence across the border in Afghanistan.
“There isn’t an inch of the country” that has not been attacked by foreign fighters, particularly those based along the Afghan-Pakistan border, Mr. Ghani said.
While the Islamic State has funneled foreign fighters into its Afghanistan branch, Kabul claims that elements of the Pakistani Taliban — or Tehrik I Taliban — have been carrying out cross-border terror strikes from safe havens in Pakistan. The notorious Haqqani network is also alleged to receive material support from Islamabad.
Pakistan’s Mr. Khan has not imparted the “sense of urgency” within his new government to curb such attacks inside Afghanistan, Mr. Ghani said. Any hopes for a lasting peace in the country depend on a “substantive and measurable change” from Mr. Khan’s government in supporting Pakistani-based terror groups operating in Afghanistan, Mr. Ghani added.
Islamabad has repeatedly argued that Kabul and Washington are making Pakistan as a scapegoat to paper over the weaknesses of Afghan security forces. But in recent weeks, Taliban fighters have sought to put the Ghani administration along with its U.S. and NATO counterparts on the defensive, launching a deadly combination of coordinated attacks on Afghan security outposts, coupled with a string of suicide strikes and insider attacks.
Mr. Ghani’s comments Monday came a day after Taliban fighters killed 16 Afghan soldiers after overrunning a government military outpost in northern Afghanistan’s Baghlan province. The attack struck deep into territory long under control of the central government.
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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