Using ceasefire for buying time won’t be accepted: Shehbaz

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday made it clear that using a 48-hour ceasefire agreed between the Taliban regime of Afghanistan and Pakistan a day earlier as a tactic to buy time won’t be acceptable.

“If in 48 hours they want to resolve the issues and address our genuine demands, then we are ready for them,” Shehbaz, reiterating that the TTP [Khawarij] terrorists should be eliminated and that Afghan territory not be used to plot attacks.

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The warning came as the prime minister in his address to the federal cabinet mentioned that the Afghan Taliban had requested for a ceasefire on Tuesday — a move triggered by the precision strikes that Pakistan carried out in Kabul and Kandahar as well as the losses they suffered all along the border.

In fact, the scramble for the latest ceasefire was a repeat of what the Afghan Taliban had done on Sunday amid the losses they suffered as a result of the swift and effective Pakistani response.

Earlier on Tuesday, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday said war with the Afghan Taliban regime had started and questioned how Pakistan could hold discussions or dialogue with them, as he opined that the temporary ceasefire reached between two sides earlier in the day won’t last long.

QATAR FACTOR

About the diplomatic efforts, Shehbaz said Qatar was trying to find an amicable solution to the problem — a role that the Gulf State is playing being an active player of the Doha Accord which led to the end of Ashraf Ghani government and the Kabul takeover in August 2021.

He made the remarks as Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Soltan bin Saad Al-Muraikhi called Ishaq Dar — Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister — on Tuesday evening and discussed matters related to regional security.

FUTURE COURSE OF ACTION

Meanwhile, the comments about the possible use of the 48-hour ceasefire for buying time also hint at the possible aggressive posture that Pakistan will adopt if the Afghan Taliban and the terrorist groups they have been housing carry out more attacks in any part of the country.

It was in this context that Khawaja Asif said Tuesday that there was not a single terrorist organisation in the world which didn’t have presence in Afghanistan.

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The defence minister made it clear that “Afghanistan can be treated a neighbour, [but it] cannot be declared a brother,” and also recalled that it was Afghanistan which carried out the first attack on Pakistan — a reference to the failed attempt to occupy the Bajaur region in 1960.

And on Wednesday, the prime minister said terrorist groups were allowed to act freely in Afghanistan and had been carrying out attacks in Pakistan.

With the security forces personnel being martyred regularly, Islamabad could no tolerate the practice anymore and that’s why had carried out strikes inside Afghanistan, said Shehbaz about targeting the terror infrastructure and the Taliban positions supporting the same.

It’s a developing story. Details to follow.