Pakistan denies Taliban used its ‘military strategy’ to capture power in Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top diplomat in the United States has categorically denied that his country’s military strategy led to the recent Taliban ascendency in Afghanistan, saying that the administration in Islamabad had been striving for an inclusive political settlement in the war-torn country along with other international stakeholders.
According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan issued the statement in response to a letter Republican Congressman Mike Waltz wrote to US President Joe Biden earlier this month.
Waltz maintained that “Pakistan’s military strategy [was] dictating the Taliban” while advocating that the US should “cut off all aid” and “consider sanctioning Pakistan.”
“The contention that Pakistan’s ‘military strategy’ was somehow the decisive factor in the defeat of the 300,000-strong Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) – trained and equipped at the cost of at least $83 billion to the American taxpayer – does not square with the US government’s own assessments about the issues of low morale, desertions, and ‘ghost soldiers’ that had long plagued the ANDSF,” Khan told Waltz in a letter.
He pointed out that the Afghan administration had been losing territory to the Taliban for many years, adding that the final collapse of the government in Kabul was shocking but hardly surprising.
The ambassador noted Pakistan had clearly communicated it to everyone it had no favorites in Afghanistan and would work with any political administration in that country.
“It may interest you to learn that on the very day that President [Ashraf] Ghani abandoned his people and fled abroad, Pakistan was hosting a diverse group of Afghan politicians – including leaders from the former Northern Alliance – as part of its continuing efforts to promote a common understanding on Afghanistan’s political future,” he added.
“The swift collapse of the Afghan government has, if anything, proven the futility of investing more effort and money into finding a military solution to a political problem,” he continued.
The Taliban intensified its military campaign against President Ghani’s administration soon after the United States announced to withdraw international forces from the war-ravaged country.
The insurgent group captured all major urban centers and strategic border crossings in Afghanistan in the subsequent weeks before capturing Kabul on August 15.
“Our doors and borders are open to the Afghan people who still look to Pakistan as their first port of call in moments of distress – notwithstanding the erstwhile Afghan regime’s deliberate campaign to poison relations between our two countries,” wrote the ambassador.

Pakistan denies Taliban used its ‘military strategy’ to capture power in Afghanistan