00:00foreign
00:30foreign minister
01:00and America has again said that we have to do that.
01:04Is it possible? It is not possible.
01:07Afghanistan is constantly limelight.
01:11It is the biggest situation that is developed in Pakistan.
01:16In terms of the security forces and the security forces are concerned,
01:21the relationship between the military operations and the kinetics efforts are concerned,
01:29Thank you very much for joining us.
01:52I wanted to ask and start with in terms of Afghanistan.
01:57First is the internal and regional security landscape.
02:02Why is it again and again becoming consistently a problem?
02:06We see that several international, regional and even local organizations are portraying
02:12it that it turns to be harboring several international.
02:16The term that they've been using technically is the FTO which is Foreign Terrorist Organization
02:22and it doesn't seem that the Afghan Taliban are sort of changing the way that they're
02:28operating these groups or harboring them in one way or another and there's definitely
02:33scoped international concern.
02:35We've seen the Moscow summit recently, we've seen the UN reports.
02:39Why is it not sort of curtailing these things and addressing the international, regional
02:45and local concerns?
02:47Thank you, Iftihara.
02:50So yeah, exactly.
02:52You just summarized some of the main developments that we have been seeing within the last four
02:59months, five months, I would say in several international forums and within international institutions regarding
03:08the terrorist threat propagating emanating from Afghanistan, either as a direct threat to
03:14Afghanistan or to its neighbors and the entire region.
03:21And this is also why we have to put into perspective Muttaki's visit to India recently just after the
03:33conclusion of the Moscow summit, the seventh round of the Moscow summit.
03:39So we see that consistently the international community has pointed out how Afghanistan even
03:47after August 2021 remains, unfortunately, a key hotspot for terrorist activities.
03:55This has been reiterated frequently in all the United Nations Security Council report by the
04:03monitoring team.
04:05So including the most recent one in July this year, the 36th report stated that there are still
04:14several actors either antagonistic to the Afghan Taliban, such as the Islamic State, or either
04:20ideologically or politically aligned or close to the Afghan Taliban, such as the GTP.
04:27But this is something new that we have seen.
04:29It also actually mentions the Baloch part of it, in which you see several groups of the Baloch
04:35being called out to be realigned with the Taliban.
04:38We haven't seen that kind of reportage from the UN's Security Council.
04:44And we haven't seen that much of a discussion.
04:46Why is it become suddenly into the limelight now?
04:51So I think that we have to go back to a watershed moment for the international community's perspective
05:00on the Baloch militant groups, which is the Jafar Express attack of early this year.
05:06So what happened is that we saw that already in August this year, there was a joint statement
05:12between Pakistan and the United States, which acknowledged the risk posed by several militant
05:19groups to the security of Pakistan and the overall region, the TTP, but also for the first
05:25time the BLA, and we saw the also listed in the BLA Majid Brigades being listed as a terrorist
05:34organization.
05:35And from that moment, we saw that not only the United States, but also other important regional
05:43actors, state actors, such as China and Russia, and also Iran themselves on the margin of the
05:52General Assembly's latest meeting in September, which just ended, on the margin of the General
06:04Assembly, Pakistan, China, Russia, and Iran put out a statement, once again reiterating the
06:12need to counter, to support Afghanistan in its fight against terrorist threat propagating from
06:19Afghanistan, and also highlighting how the risk that these groups pose from Afghanistan are
06:26also affecting the whole stability of the region.
06:28And among these groups, two I think are the most interesting, which is of course Baloch militant
06:34groups, specifically the BLA, but also another instance is the mentioning for the first time
06:40of Jeshul Adal.
06:41So we know that also Iran has made recently claims, since last year, that Jeshul Adal has
06:47also hideouts in Afghanistan from where they can strike inside its Balochistan province, which
06:56is an interesting development, because in the past, we know that Iran had frequently highlighted
07:02the fact that, it stressed the fact that Pakistan needed to do more in countering cross-border
07:11attacks of Jeshul Adal from Pakistan to Iran, making these allegations.
07:15However, now we see a change.
07:17We see that Iran is actually highlighting that Jeshul Adal has possibly moved its hideouts in
07:24Afghanistan, where it can reorganize and then strike within the country.
07:29And then, as you mentioned before, the last instance is this Moscow summit, where again,
07:36Afghanistan has been highlighted as one of the...
07:41But we do see that, you know, when I looked at the Moscow summit's outcome in terms of its
07:48official statement, and then I looked at task news, particularly its headline, which says
07:54that it's emanating from Afghanistan, and Afghanistan needs to do more in terms of curtailing, you
08:00know, terrorist entities that are harming its, you know, neighbors, immediate neighbors.
08:07But then Russia also recognizes the Taliban in terms of its leverage and its capacity to
08:13influence what's happening in Afghanistan. It was astonishing to me that, I mean, that kind of
08:18statement would be given, which obviously doesn't completely sort of, you know, look into the
08:25claims of what the Afghan Taliban have to say, because they've been saying that there is no
08:29threat from Afghanistan literally to any country.
08:33Yes, exactly. I think this is a clear sign on how Russia and neighboring countries are
08:40approaching Afghanistan. Of course, providing the diplomatic coverage to Afghanistan and granting
08:50the recognition of the Taliban government by Russia is an important step towards also framing
08:57possibly and a joint collaboration in curbing terrorism from Afghanistan. The main issue, which
09:11involves, of course, Afghanistan, Russia and the neighboring regions and neighboring countries. One
09:16of the main issue is that, as you were mentioning at the start of the conversation, we don't see
09:24clear signs from the Taliban government as have been pointed out by several stakeholders and
09:32observers in curbing out all forms of militant activities propagating from Afghanistan. And
09:40specifically, we saw this with the recent shutdown of the internet coverage from
09:46Afghanistan. So, several analysts and observers noted that the Pakistani Taliban
09:53affiliated social media accounts, not the official one, but mostly those run by local militants,
10:04by rank and file militants, they also went silent for 48 hours, with some caveats, of course,
10:12which point out the fact that there are movements, continuous movements of these militants from Pakistan
10:18Afghanistan and vice versa. But again, this is a clear indication that within Afghanistan, there are
10:25militant groups that are still capable of operating with some degree, with a fair degree of freedom. We also
10:33had reports of commanders of other factions of the Pakistani Taliban, which have been cited in Kabul, and this is all pretty
10:43common. So, this is a known fact of these militants.
10:48So, we got to take a small little break over here. But coming back, I will ask you, because there is, the question that keeps
10:56in arising is that, why hasn't it been able to solve Pakistan's TTP problem, which is emanating from Afghanistan?
11:03Nazareen, amare saath raiye ga, waapis haa kar Vaila Rikardo se, sawal jayayayi puchhinge, ke afghanistan kiyon yay masla jayabhi tak hal nahi kar saka?
11:11Welcome back, Nazareen.
11:16Wale, my question to you was, one is the local perspective that we see in terms of ideology, that the tehreek-e-Taliban, whether it's
11:26Pakistan or Afghanistan or Tajikistan, when we look at the narrative shaping, it's almost under the similar umbrella. So, there is no
11:33differentiation. But that's a very localized understanding in terms of, to say that, why the group is not acting against its
11:40subsidiaries. From a global lens, when you look at, you know, more strategic sort of accountability in terms of why it's not
11:49happening, what's the perspective outside Pakistan in terms of, why wouldn't the Afghan-Taliban actually take action against
11:56elements which Pakistan accuses it of harboring on its soil and carrying out attacks in Pakistan?
12:06So, Iftahar, I think that this is deeply rooted in the history of the region, in the history of the Afghan Jihad, of course, and in the
12:14history of Pakistani Taliban assisting the Afghan Taliban during their struggle in Afghanistan. And since the beginning, if we look back at the
12:24early statements of the Pakistani Taliban, even before 2007, the main objective was to, of course, reinstate the
12:34emirate in Afghanistan and then subsequently shift the focus from Afghanistan to Pakistan. So, that has always been the
12:42objective of all Pakistani Taliban factions. And this, of course, has also been shared by those Afghan Taliban that historically
12:51have supported the Pakistani Taliban. So, this is something that relates deeply connected to
12:58.
