Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, has urged exploring a “new strategy” of engaging and persuading the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan to address the international community’s concerns over political and human rights in the war-torn country, adding that the old approach of leveraging international aid to pressure Taliban was not working.
“The strategy, followed so far, of leveraging international assistance in order to put pressure on the Taliban to meet the demands of the international community, has not been successful,” the Pakistani envoy said in an interview with BBC Radio and BBC TV Live on Tuesday.
Therefore, he added, a new strategy was needed to engage the Taliban and persuade them in order to correct their behavior and continue the international support for the Afghan people.
Responding to questions, the Pakistani envoy said that although some of the Taliban decisions are not acceptable to the global community, Pakistan has no option other than to live with Afghanistan, it’s a neighbor. “Whatever happens in Afghanistan impacts Pakistan,” he said.
“We cannot afford to discontinue engagement with the Taliban, they are a reality, they are in control of the whole country, and therefore we have to deal with them,” Ambassador Akram added.
Cutting off aid to cause a dire situation: Pakistani envoy
He said that cutting off international support or humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan would result in “a dire situation, famine, and hunger, an outflow of refugees, greater instability, rise of terrorism, all those consequences will flow from” such an action.
The ambassador urged to continue engagement, humanitarian assistance, and support an economic revival in Afghanistan because he said it was how the Afghan people could emerge from poverty and the dire situation they face.
Answering a question about the Taliban not fulfilling their promises Ambassador Akram said that “apart from engagement, what other choice does the global community has because the alternative is an even greater disaster in Afghanistan so we have no choice but to engage with the Taliban and to keep on trying to persuade them.
