Pakistan rejects Afghan government's claims

Pakistan has rejected Afghan government's claims pertaining to presence of leaders and members of the Afghan Taliban and their training camps in the country, describing it as "rhetoric based on myth." Official sources privy to the development said that the alleged list of 85 Taliban operatives and their 32 training camps provided by Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Omar Zakhilwal to Foreign Office and General Headquarters (GHQ) is based on mere allegations.
The names of the Taliban operatives as provided by the Afghan government, the sources added, have either been killed in the ongoing operations under Zarb-e-Azb or most of them have already crossed into Afghanistan, who are now based in that country. As far as the alleged training camps are concerned, they rejected the allegations saying that there is no terrorist training camp inside Pakistan and all such camps have been destroyed during the ongoing massive counterterrorism operations under Zarb-e-Azb.
While those Taliban operatives who are in the country's jails would be dealt according to the law of the land, the sources added. "The list provided by the Afghan government is quite outdated and the allegations are nothing but rhetoric based on myth," said a senior government official who stated that a response would also be communicated to the Afghan government through diplomatic channels in a couple of days.
On Monday, the Afghan government stated that the country's ambassador in Islamabad had handed over a list containing names of 85 senior members and leaders of Taliban and other terrorist groups, including Haqqani Network, and their training camps allegedly based in Pakistan and urged the country to arrest and hand them over to the Afghan government.
However, an official who requested anonymity said that during meetings of the Afghan envoy at the Foreign Office with Adviser the Prime Minister Sartaj Aziz as well as at the GHQ on Monday, the two sides have agreed to work together to eradicate terrorism on both sides of the border.
He insisted that Afghan government needs to act upon the list of "most wanted" terrorists based in Afghanistan which was handed over to the Afghan authorities at GHQ on February 17. Following the recent wave of terror attacks, the Afghan Embassy authorities were summoned to the GHQ to deliver the list of terrorists based in Afghanistan, who are involved in terror attacks. An official of Foreign Office insisted that the Afghan Embassy officials were only called to the GHQ for sharing the "technical details" of the terrorists based in Afghanistan and the terror activities they are launching against Pakistan while using the Afghan soil.