Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, has asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to urge the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan to terminate their relationship with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The TTP could “soon pose a global terrorist threat” if left unchecked, Ambassador Akram warned the UNSC on Wednesday while addressing a special Security Council session on Afghanistan.
“The Afghan interim government’s failure to control the TTP and other terrorist groups erodes its claim of full control of its territory that it asserts in order to secure international recognition,” he said. He also urged the UN to investigate how the TTP acquired advanced military equipment and weaponry and identify the source of its finances, which has helped sustain its estimated 50,000 fighters and terrorist operations. Regarding the reported border incidents, he said that the armed forces respond to “cross-border attacks by the TTP and its affiliates against the country’s border posts and installations”.
“We would expect the UN to call on the Afghan interim government to prevent such cross-border attacks and infiltration by the TTP and other terrorists into Pakistani territory,” he said. Highlighting that terrorist organisations in Afghanistan pose a security threat to the country’s immediate neighbours, the ambassador said: “Counter-terrorism must be the highest priority in any future roadmap for engagement with the Afghan interim government.”
At the same time, ambassador Akram said that the international community must help millions of destitute Afghans “through the provision of unconditional humanitarian assistance”. He urged for the “support Afghanistan’s economy and, to this end, the international community should help revive the banking system and facilitate the release of frozen assets to the country’s central bank”.
For its part, the envoy said, the Taliban “must fulfill its international obligations especially regarding the fundamental rights of women and girls promote inclusivity and, above all, eliminate terrorism within and from Afghanistan”.
