Pakistan rejects Zalmay Khalilzad's allegations of arming Afghans

Pakistan has categorically rejected the baseless and misleading allegations by Zalmay Khalilzad, former ambassador of the US to Afghanistan, of arming former Afghans to fight Taliban and their supporters terrorist groups.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s Fact Check account said in a post on X that Khalilzad’s sweeping baseless assertions merely recycle speculative narratives as part of his personal agenda to prop up terrorism supporting Taliban regime.

The information ministry said  it is particularly misleading to conflate Pakistan’s legitimate counterterrorism operations against terrorist organisations operating from inside Afghan Taliban regime controlled areas threatening its citizens with allegations of recruiting Afghan nationals or sponsoring armed groups inside Afghanistan.

“Pakistan remains at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and has made enormous sacrifices in protecting regional peace and security,” it said.

The information ministry emphasised that successive UN monitoring reports have documented the continued presence and activities of terrorist organisations, including TTP and Al-Qaeda, inside Afghanistan. It said Khalilzad’s allegations conveniently divert attention from the Afghan Taliban regime’s responsibility to prevent its territory from being used by Indian sponsored proxies for terrorism against Pakistan.

The ministry said Khalilzad’s paddling of such unsubstantiated allegations only expose his skewed agenda based views.