ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has asserted that the United States would have to recognise the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan sooner or later, urging the country to unfreeze Afghan reserves.
In a wide-ranging interview with Turkish broadcaster TRT World that aired on Saturday, the Prime Minister pointed out that Pakistan alone recongising the Taliban government in Kabul won’t make “much difference”.
“If all the neighbours get together, who are going to be the affected in case of chaos in Afghanistan, and form a joint policy then it will have more impact than simply Pakistan recognising them,” the premier added.
The prime minister said preferably, it has to be the US, Europe, Russia, and China whose recognition of the Taliban government in Kabul would make a difference. “However, the big question is when the US is going to recognize the Taliban. Sooner or later, they will have to,” he added.
“At the moment, as you can see in the Senate hearing, in the media, there is shock and confusion in the US, they are completely surprised about the outcome of the Taliban coming back to power again,” the premier added.
PM Imran continued, “If the US doesn’t defreeze their reserves and the Afghan government collapses and this goes into a chaotic situation, the biggest losers will be the people of Afghanistan. As per the UN estimates, by next year, over 95 percent of the people will go below the poverty line.”
Comparing it to the situation after the exit of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the prime minister this time it was a “peaceful transfer of power” that was very unexpected. “However, now the problem is the looming humanitarian crisis because the Afghan government was dependent on foreign aid,” he added.
“Unless there is help in the short term, there is a grave danger of collapse of government, chaos and a humanitarian crisis,” he said, adding that in long term, the Taliban government may stand on its own feet.
Commenting on the inclusive Afghan government, the premier said, “When we say an inclusive government, we recongise, everyone recongises, even the Taliban would recognise, that Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic group.”
“The world cannot dictate the Taliban on who to include in the inclusive government as that would be akin to interference in their internal affairs,” he said, adding that the Taliban do agree that there should be an inclusive government, but they should not be “dictated”.
Imran reiterated that Pakistan should not be made a scapegoat for failures in Afghanistan and added that Pakistan lost 80,000 people and had over 3.5 million displaced internally, but rather than being appreciated for these sacrifices, Pakistan was blamed for failures in Afghanistan.
Referring to the Pak-US ties, the prime minister said Islamabad and Washington had been constantly in touch with each other. To a question, he said US president Joe Biden was under a lot of pressure as he was being criticised for the evacuation and the events after.
“If there was a mess, like after USSR’s forces’ withdrawal during 90s, it could once again result in a bloodbath. If there was chaos in Afghanistan, international terrorist outfits could find safe havens there,” he cautioned.
