(Washington) The international community must speak to the Taliban at the risk if not of potentially dangerous consequences if the new leaders of Afghanistan are isolated, estimated the head of Pakistani diplomacy in an interview with AFP.
Posted at 2:45 p.m.
For Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was visiting Washington, we must also beware of “parallel governance” after the decision of the United States to freeze half of Afghan assets and place them in a fund in Switzerland.
“History teaches us that when we wash our hands of something and turn our backs, we end up causing unintended consequences and more problems for ourselves,” he said Tuesday in This interview.
“I think our concerns about an economic collapse, an exodus of refugees or even the threat of new recruits for groups like the Islamic State group and others, outweigh our concerns about their financial institutions,” he said. he said again.
The Taliban regained power in August 2021 after 20 years of occupation of the country by the United States and its NATO allies. But the country of 38 million people is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, according to the United Nations.
The Taliban regime, which has largely imposed since its return to power the ultra-rigorous interpretation of Islam that characterized its first reign between 1996 and 2001, with in particular significant restrictions imposed on women, has not yet been recognized by any country.
As for relations with Pakistan, whose military and intelligence apparatus has long been suspected of having supported them, they have clearly deteriorated.
Unlike former Pakistani officials, the minister, whose mother is former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007, had no words of sympathy for the Taliban.
But he felt they needed a bit of “political space” when it came to women’s rights in particular.
Rival powers
At 34, Mr. Bhutto Zardari, who graduated from the prestigious University of Oxford, took office five months ago at a time of political crisis in Pakistan.
And the country was recently hit by the worst floods in its history, devastating large parts of the territory and displacing millions of people.
At a meeting on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would provide strong support to Pakistan.
In a message less well received by Islamabad, he also called on Pakistan to seek debt relief from its close partner, China.
Asked about this, Mr. Bhutto Zardari said he had “very constructive discussions” with China while hoping that aid to Pakistan would “not become the subject of rivalries between great powers and geostrategic questions”.
Successive governments in Islamabad have rejected American pressure calling on them to speak out on the repression of the Muslim Uyghur minority in China, which Washington describes as “genocide”.
“I’m sure the United States would like us to react a little more to China’s internal affairs,” Bhutto Zardari said.
“But perhaps it would be more productive if we started talking about conflicts recognized as having an international character by institutions like the United Nations,” he added, in a clear reference to Kashmir.
This region has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from the British Crown and the partition of 1947, and has been the cause of two of the three wars that have opposed them since.
The Pakistani minister recalled in this regard that his country had in the 2010s reached out to India then led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“We were ready to take a political risk […], but only because opposite there was a rational, reasonable partner, potentially capable of deceiving us,” he said. “Unfortunately, this space no longer exists today. India is a very different country”.