Pakistan will continue its sincere efforts for peace, stability in Afghanistan: FM

Islamabad: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said the use of Afghan soil for terrorist activities in Pakistan is deplorable.

He was chairing a meeting of Advisory Council for Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on Friday.

The Foreign Minister apprised the council members about investigation into Dasu incident.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Pakistan will continue its sincere efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan. If situation further deteriorates in Afghanistan, Pakistan will be most affected by it.

He said Pakistan considers peace imperative for regional connectivity and development.

The Advisory Council also discussed the situation in Indian Illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The world has started pointing at the way the United States abandons Afghanistan and the simultaneous collapse of the Afghan army as the Taliban takeover happens at stunning speed.

“The reality is that after 20 years of [military] training and an expenditure of trillion dollars, there is no real Afghan army that is able to defend its country,” said Fareed Zakaria, renowned American journalist and host of CNN.

Zakaria said the collapse of Afghan forces was going on much faster than predicted.

“We thought that the U.S. troops were holding this country together. That wasn’t really the case,” he said.

Referring to U.S. President Joe Biden’s earlier statement where he said that the Taliban takeover was ‘not inevitable’, Zakaria said it reminded him of the case of Vietnam war.

“Taliban are taking over without much fight, as the Afghan troops just melt away,” he said.

Former Afghan finance minister Dr Omar Zakhilwal said Afghanistan once again was at the crossroads of a struggle between the “state survival and a deeper crisis”.

He said over the past seven years, Afghan President Dr. Ashraf Ghani ran the Afghan State like a “private fiefdom”. “With untrue or exaggerated narratives, gross mismanagement, misuse of power, excessive repeated violation of the constitution, nepotism, instilling political and national divisiveness, deliberate politicization and demoralization of state institutions, political conspiracies, sabotaging of successive opportunities for peace and extension of his rule by another five years by fraudulent means, he instead reduced the State and the Republic to his face,” he tweeted.

As a result, he said, the Afghan national security forces were faced with the confusion “whether they are fighting for the survival of the State or the continuation in power of Ashraf Ghani”.

Former U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer Jack Posobiec in a tweet said Afghanistan was a 20-year grift for the military-industrial complex in full public view which fell apart like a Wall Street Ponzi scheme, as he referred to the scheme that had defrauded thousands of investors and stolen billions of dollars.