ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said India was in breach of its obligation as the United Nations Security Council’s president as it denied Pakistan‘s request to brief the forum on the situation and its role in Afghanistan.
Qureshi while addressing a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was referring to the UNSC’s meeting last week on Afghanistan’s deteriorating situation, where Kabul had accused Islamabad of making its land a safe haven for Taliban fighters, which Pakistan had later termed “mere fantasies”.
Qureshi said Pakistan should have been invited to the UNSC’s meeting on Afghanistan as the country was not only a neighbour, but it has suffered the most after Afghanistan.
The foreign minister noted Pakistan was one of the biggest stakeholders in peace and stability in Afghanistan and has been facilitating the peace process in the war-torn country.
“We had made a request to be present there, but unfortunately, it was not accepted,” he said, adding that at the time of India assuming the UNSC presidency, Pakistan had asked it to operate objectively.
However, it did not behave in a manner that was befitting of that responsibility, the foreign minister said. “India has been, in our view, in breach of its obligation as president of the Security Council.”
Pakistan has been facilitating the peace process, and our role has been and will continue to be of a facilitator, the foreign minister said, clarifying Islamabad was not playing the role of a guarantor.
“We cannot guarantee, we can only facilitate,” he said, noting it was up to the Afghans to decide their future, and now the world community was backing Pakistan’s narrative that there is no military solution in Afghanistan.
Pakistan played a crucial role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table in 2019; facilitated the conclusion of the US, Taliban peace agreement in February 2020 in Doha; helped convene the intra-Afghan negotiations in September last year, and in December 2020, it contributed to the rules of procedure between the parties, he said.
The foreign minister said Pakistan has joined the troika — Islamabad, Washington, and Beijing — to facilitate the intra-Afghan talks and the Doha peace process.
Read more: Afghanistan seeks Pakistan’s help in ‘dismantling’ Taliban
