Published 19:21 IST, October 3rd 2019

Pakistan-Taliban meet irks Afghanistan, questions legitimacy of meet

Afghanistan lambasted Pakistan for hosting the Taliban in Islamabad, to review the broken peace talks with the US and called it a failed pattern.

Reported by: Aishwaria Sonavane
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Afghanistan government lambasted Pakistan for hosting Taliban in Islamabad on Thursday, to review broken peace talks with United States, according to sources. 

Republic sources confirmed that Afghanistan questioned legitimacy of Pakistan-Taliban meet, furr stating that it is Afghan people who would decide peace of ir country, t ors. Taliban has unleashed bloody violence in country to bring obstacles in democratic election process, thus causing more casualties in August than war-torn Syria and Yemen combined.

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Laying bare Pakistan's hypocrisy on Taliban, Afghanistan even called meeting between Islamabad and an armed terror group, a failed pattern. Taliban has also agreed to meet with US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, who is currently in Pakistan. 

READ| US-Taliban talks collapse an untimely setback for Pakistan

Taliban delegation in Pakistan

Top leaders of militant met with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi with view to revive "dead" talks between US and Taliban to end 18-year-old war. Foreign Office said in a statement that a delegation of Taliban Political Commission (TPC) called on Qureshi.

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Qureshi ted that existing, broad regional and international consensus for achieving peace in Afghanistan at earliest provided an unprecedented opportunity that must t be lost. Reiterating Pakistan's backing for all efforts to achieve "permanent peace" in Afghanistan. 

Pakistan Foreign Minister said all se years Pakistan has also kept reminding world t to overlook hardcore political, ecomic, socio-cultural and ethnic ground realities in Afghanistan and its immediate neighborhood.

Pakistan uses Taliban to counter India

Since inception of Taliban in 1994, Pakistan's Foreign Policy in Afghanistan has been in favour of Taliban, who also considers militant group as Afghan representative, instead of government. 

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Islamabad policy towards Taliban has been motivated to counter New Delhi's influence in Afghanistan. According to documents released by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks from hacked personal email account of former CIA director John Brennan, it was confirmed that Pakistan uses terrorists as proxies to counter India's growing influence in Kabul. 

READ| Pakistani Taliban chief designated as 'global terrorist' by Trump

Brennan, three days after Barack Obama was elected US President in vember 2008, wrote to him in a position-cum- strategy paper that Pakistan uses Taliban to counter India in Afghanistan.

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"Pakistan's desire to counter India's growing influence in Afghanistan and concerns about US long-term commitments to Afghanistan increase Pakistan's interest in hedging its bets by ensuring that it will be able to have a working relationship with Taliban to balance Indian and Iranian interests if US withdraws," Brennan wrote on vember 7 in 2008.


 

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19:14 IST, October 3rd 2019