KABUL or any other country through political channel, not through violence, US President Donald Trump’s national security advisor says.
HR McMaster, currently on a swing through the region, said in an interview: “As all of us have hoped for many years that Pakistani leaders will understand that it is in their interest to go after (militant) groups less selectively than they have in the past…”
He told Tolo News the best way for Pakistan to pursue its interest in Afghanistan and elsewhere was through diplomacy — not through the use of proxies that engaged in violence.
The Taliban refusing to join the peace process would be defeated militarily, the visiting dignitary asserted. “They can be defeated in a number of ways,” the advisor said.
“For those who are now willing to join their Afghan brothers to strengthen the state, to end the violence, to be part of the political process, I think, your president and the chief executive officer will welcome them back in. So it is their choice now.”
On the bombing of Daesh militants in Nangarhar province, McMaster said the Trump administration would not tolerate the existence of such groups.
“Well, it is not just the bomb (Thursday’s MOAB), but it is really what our soldiers are doing every day alongside courageous Afghan soldiers, fighting Daesh,” he remarked.
The advisor added US and Afghan forces would not spare the elements who victimsed women, shot people in hospitals. He called Daesh and Taliban a threat to all civilized people, stressed they must be defeated.
McMaster, on the second leg of his visit, will fly to Pakistan before arriving in New Delhi to drum up support for America’s new plan to stabilise Afghanistan.
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