Khawaja Asif's Accusations Against India and Afghanistan
- Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has once again condemned India, accusing Afghanistan of being controlled by New Delhi. He threatened that if Pakistan is attacked, it will retaliate with much more intensity.
- During an interview with a new agency, Asif blamed the Afghan administration in Kabul of being India's stooges. He asserted that India is using Afghanistan to conceal its strategic defeats. In his opinion, peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan tend to fail because of external influence, primarily from India.
- Asif also credited Afghanistan's delegation for taking interest in peace negotiations on the frontier. Still, he claimed that India's intervention has hindered further movement. In reply to recent Afghan threats after clashes on the border, he blamed Afghanistan for patronizing terrorism within Pakistan. He further stated that in case of failure of the peace talks, the conflict may heighten into a full-scale war, with India said to be using Afghanistan as a proxy.
Failure of Pak-Afghan Peace Talks
- Recent border skirmishes between Afghanistan and Pakistan have strained the two nations' relations. To defuse tensions, there were several rounds of negotiations in Turkey. These negotiations failed to yield agreement despite an initial breakthrough.
- Officials from both the sides verified that although few issues were settled, negotiations collapsed after the Taliban regime declined to move against militants behind recent border attacks. Pakistan's Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar, made similar assertions.
- Within hours of the negotiations breaking down, both countries' state media announced a stalemate. After the collapse, the Taliban government threatened Pakistan that any other attack on Afghan soil would be met with fierce response.
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