A virtual ministerial liaison meeting in Afghanistan was hosted by the United States and Germany in which Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also spoke.
Mahmood Qureshi said that only a stable and peaceful Afghanistan could be a better international community partner. As a close neighbor, Pakistan cannot secede from Afghanistan.
He said that Pakistan had fully supported the safe evacuation of foreigners and Afghans at the international community’s request, adding that no major refugee crisis had emerged since the fall of the former Afghan government.
The Foreign Minister said that sustainable support from the international community was needed to address the plight of the Afghan people, adding that Pakistan was already hosting 4 million registered and unregistered Afghan refugees.
Shah Mehmood added that freezing US 10 10 billion could lead to an economic crisis in Afghanistan.
The Foreign Minister said that peace and stability in Afghanistan are in the interest of Pakistan as Pakistan has been severely affected by the ongoing war in Afghanistan for the last 40 years.
“We appreciate President Biden’s August 31 message to end the Afghan war. We believe that the situation in Afghanistan has changed dramatically today. We need to develop regional and global ties for lasting peace in Afghanistan,” he said. There is a human tragedy looming there; reports of food shortages and inflation in Afghanistan are in plain sight, while Afghan refugees’ threat of an invasion has apparently been averted.
Shah Mehmood said that there should be no political vacuum in Afghanistan which could lead to instability, adding that there was concern that Al Qaeda, ISIS, BLA, and TTP should not use the territory of Afghanistan, Pakistan would not want it. That Afghanistan became a hotbed of terrorists.
