Days after Pakistan struck militant bases in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that Islamabad does not want an armed conflict with the neighbouring country.
In an interview with Voice of America published on Wednesday, Asif said, “Force is the last resort. We do not want to have an armed conflict with Afghanistan.”
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On March 18, Pakistan struck Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces in “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations”, which Afghan authorities said killed eight people.
The Foreign Office had confirmed the strikes, saying they were aimed at the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, which recently targeted security forces in North Waziristan, martyring seven soldiers.
The airstrikes were responded to by Afghanistan forces which used heavy weapons, including mortars, to target troops across the border in Kurram and North Waziristan.
Tuesday remained relatively calmer as guns on both sides of the boundary remained silent, barring the Angoor Adda border.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif asserted that the government would not tolerate any cross-border terrorism. He also invited “neighbouring countries” to “come and sit together” to devise a plan against terrorism.
Speaking about the Pakistani strike with VOA, Asif said: “A message needed to be sent that this [cross-border terrorism] has grown too much.”
He added that Pakistan wanted to convey to the Afghan interim government in Kabul that “we cannot continue like this”.
Asif warned that Islamabad could block the corridor it provided to Afghanistan for trade with India. The defence minister asserted that Pakistan had the right to stop facilitating Kabul if it failed to curb anti-Pakistan terrorists operating on Afghan soil.
“If Afghanistan treats us like an enemy, then why should we give them a trade corridor?” he asked.
Recalling the February 2023 visit to Kabul by a high-level delegation led by him, Asif said he had told the Taliban ministers to not let banned militant Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) past “favours” tie Kabul’s hands.
“If they [TTP] have done you a favour and you’re grateful to them, then control them. Don’t let them start a war with us while living in your country, and you become their ally,” VOA quoted him as saying.
“If they can harm us, then we’ll be forced to [retaliate],” the minister said, while expressing hope that Afghanistan would meet the “single demand” of reining in the TTP, hence preventing the need for future military strikes from Pakistan.
Asif alleged that Kabul was letting the TTP operate against Pakistan in a bid to prevent its members from joining the militant Islamic State group’s local chapter, known as the IS-Khorasan chapter.
The VOA report also stated Asif “dismissed the lack of public support from Beijing” on the strikes Pakistan conducted on Monday.
“It’s not necessary that the world must applaud us. What is in our interest is enough for us. We are protecting our interest, irrespective of whether someone applauds us or not,” the minister said.
