Pakistan wants Haqqanis, Taliban to return to Afghanistan: Aizaz Chaudhry

• Ambassador says Pakistan also seeks to send Afghan refugees back as their youth are being used by terrorists in terror activities

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Aizaz Chaudhry on Friday said Pakistan don’t want Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network operatives living with it and is coercing them to go back and join the political mainstream in Afghanistan.

Besides Haqqanis, Pakistan also wants the Afghan refugees out of the country. The BBC Urdu quoted the ambassador as saying that the refugees were becoming a security threat to Pakistan as their youth was being hired by the terrorists.

Clarifying Pakistan’s stance on the indiscriminate action against the extremist outfits along the Pak-Afghan border, he said, “Our position on the issue is very clear that we want them [Taliban, Haqqanis] to go back to Afghanistan. In fact, we are forcing them to go and live there and join the political mainstream as they’re not accepted here anymore.”

Responding to queries regarding US’s allegations of providing shelter to the militants, Chaudhry said there were no terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, adding if the US has any information about it then they should share it with us as we want to eliminate them as well.

However, Chaudhry questioned the presence of these outfits in Pakistan, saying they had a control over 43 per cent land in Afghanistan.

Addressing to the US, the ambassador said both countries shared the common target of bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

After the new Trump’s Afghanistan policy allegations and allegations of terrorists’ safe havens in Pakistan, the two sides had involved in a series of spat. Recently, the US had cut off military assistance to Pakistan, while Pakistan had claimed to put an end to the intelligence sharing with the US.

However, the ambassador told the BBC that the two countries were still in contact at different levels including intelligence sharing at working level.

“We want the doors of dialogue to remain open including intelligence cooperation which is at working level at the moment and officials are engaging each other,” he said.