Pakistan says helped US bring Afghan Taliban to table, was cut out of negotiations

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (C-L) meets with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (C-R) in the Qatari capital Doha on November 21, 2020. (AFP/ File)

• National security adviser says US-backed government in Kabul used Pakistan as scapegoat to excuse own “corruptions and unpopularity”
• Asks US to consider “selfish national interest” and answer: “How does it help to push away a country of this size, stature and power?”

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani national security adviser Dr. Moeed Yusuf has said Pakistan had helped Washington bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table, but was cut out of the negotiations and now being blamed for the outcome in war-torn Afghanistan where the Taliban captured power earlier this month without a negotiated political settlement being worked out.
Afghan security forces whom the United States helped train crumbled as Taliban militants made their way through Afghanistan in less than two weeks, capturing Kabul on August 15 and leaving the United States with few partners on the ground.
Pakistan has deep ties with the Taliban and has been accused of supporting the group as it battled the US-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul — charges denied by Islamabad. When the Taliban captured Kabul, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said Afghans had broken the “shackles of slavery.”
In a phone interview to the Washington Post, published on Wednesday, Yusuf said the United States and Pakistan had a shared interest in working together in Afghanistan, but would need to fix their bilateral relationship.
“The US-supported government in Kabul used Pakistan as a scapegoat to excuse its own ineptitude, corruptions and unpopularity,” Yusuf said, as quoted by the Post. “Pakistan helped bring the Taliban to the negotiating table at Washington’s request, got cut out of the negotiations and is now being blamed for the outcome.”
“Pakistan is the victim. We had nothing to do with 9/11. … We teamed up with the US to fight back … and after that there is a major backlash on Pakistan,” Yusuf said. “But let’s let all that pass. We need to work out how to move forward as partners, because neither side can do without the other in terms of stability in the region.”
He added: “Right now, in the situation we are in, how are US and Pakistan’s interests not aligned? I’m not asking for any sympathy for Pakistan. I’m thinking in terms of pure US selfish national interests. How does it help to push away a country of this size, stature and power?”
Yusuf said a security vacuum in Afghanistan would see terror outfits take root again, urging the United States to increase its diplomatic and economic involvement in Afghanistan and find a way forward to engage diplomatically with the Taliban.
The United States should not isolate Afghanistan to punish its new rulers, Yusuf said.
“Now that the Taliban has the whole country, they don’t really need Islamabad as much anymore,” he said. “Assistance and recognition is the leverage. Who has that? It’s the Western countries that have much more leverage in Afghanistan than Pakistan.”