Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly emphasised on provision of urgent humanitarian assistance as well as economic support to Afghanistan to avert the twin challenges of humanitarian crisis and economic collapse. Talking to the special representatives/envoys of Troika Plus for Afghanistan, who called on him Friday, the PM underscored, among other things, the need for greater peace and stability in Afghanistan for security and prosperity of the entire region. Our Foreign Office, however, has failed to delineate the right course for Pakistan in relation to the post-Taliban takeover Afghanistan. The prime minister, in my view, ought to have reached out to oil-rich Islamic states to solicit support for efforts aimed at averting a grave humanitarian crisis in this landlocked country. The ‘Troika’ cannot be of much help. Russia from among the Troika Plus, for example, seeks to weaken Afghanistan with a view to weakening the Islamic State that poses threats to not only former Central Asian republics but also the Middle East or anywhere the successor state to the then Soviet Union has its footprints owing to a variety of reasons. We are moving in the wrong direction, to say the least.

Rahmat Husain Jahangir (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021