Pakistan renews TTP presence on Afghan soil claim, IEA rejects

KABUL (Pajhwok):  Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has once again alleged the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is using Afghanistan’s soil for attacks in Pakistan, a claim rejected by Kabul.

Kakar in an interview with Geo News TV that the TTP organized attacks in Pakistan from Afghanistan.

He said: “The (Afghan) caretaker government knows very well from where TTP members stage attacks in Pakistan and now they should decide whether to hand over the TTP people to us or to carry out operations against them on their own.”

He added two years ago when peace talks with the TTP started, TTP members were actually in Kabul.

In response to Kakar’s remarks, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Pajhwok Afghan News: “We reject this claim, there is no one in Afghanistan who can pose a threat to Pakistan and we do not allow such a person to enter the territory of Afghanistan and Pakistanis should focus on its own security in their own land.”

Earlier, Mujahid had said as a brotherly and neighbouring country, Afghanistan favoured good relations with Pakistan, which must also understand IEA’s positive intentions.

He asked Islamabad not to doubt the goodwill of a neighbour that did not want to interfere in the affairs of others and was ready to take action against those trying to do so.

Also on Monday, Balochistan caretaker Minister for Information Jan Achakzai said that if there was no let-up in militant activity from Afghanistan, Pakistan would “go into terrorist hideouts and teach them a lesson”.

Addressing a press conference in Quetta, Achakzai said that Pakistan had been hosting Afghan refugees for the last 40 years.

“But in return, instead of discouraging terrorism and terror, it is concerning that they are being given militant hideouts and advanced weaponry,” Dawn.com quoted him as saying.

The minister said that Pakistan had placed its demands in front of the Afghan rulers and had repeatedly made it clear that it was against all kinds of militancy.

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