Former Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmad Khan has said that the Afghan peace process has to be Afghan-owned without any outside interference. "Pakistan would like the US and China to continue to support this peace process," he stressed.
Talking exclusively to Business Recorder regarding the ongoing developments in Afghanistan, he said it is also important that the regional countries do not use the territory of Afghanistan for destabilizing activities in third countries. Regional rivalries can easily stoke the fires of conflict with regional contenders easily reaching out to rival factions within Afghanistan and fueling the internal conflict that has now already spread to Pakistan. It is necessary to control and contain these regional rivalries. He said any peace settlement in Afghanistan is cognizant of security concerns of the states in the region and the broader international community.
According to him, the Kabul Declaration of December 22, 2002 on Good Neighborly Relations signed under UN auspices by Afghanistan's six neighboring states, namely Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, provides the most appropriate multilateral basis for these guarantees on Afghanistan's independence and non-interference in its internal affairs. Obviously, he said, Washington has its own priorities as part of its larger Asian agenda in pursuit of its worldwide political and economic power. It invaded Afghanistan on the pretext of 9/11 by waging an unrelated 'war on terror.' It forced Taliban out of power but never eliminated them. Thirteen years later, it seems to have created a 'strategic stalemate' in which it could withdraw but not entirely. It will still keep a large military presence as a counter terrorism mission. Those familiar with Afghan history know what it means for any foreign military presence on its soil, no matter under what arrangement or nomenclature.
He pointed out that China is also concerned over the US military counter-weight pressure points built in its backyard (Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and also India). It also has serious concerns over the persistent instability in the region with Islamic fundamentalism and radical influences seeping out of this region with ominous implications for its Western region. With the ongoing transition in Afghanistan, it is only natural that China as a major power in the region braces itself for a balancing role in the strategically important regions across its Western borders.
With surreptitious induction of its nuisance potential into the murky Afghan theatre, he said, India is also pretending for a role in the region and in the process seeking to redefine India-Pakistan issues. This is a serious situation. Afghanistan is an area of fundamental strategic importance to Pakistan. The risk of a Pakistan-India proxy war in Afghanistan is fraught with perilous implications for regional and global peace, and must be averted at all cost.