Pakistan has accused India of “using terrorism as a state policy” to destabilise neighbouring countries, and that a recent United Nations Report had confirmed Islamabad’s position that militant group – Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was operating from Afghanistan and with Indian support.
In a statement, the Foreign Office said the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (MT) had independently examined that “foreign terrorist fighters from India are travelling to Afghanistan to join the ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K)”.
The Pakistan FO claims that the monitoring team “noted that an Indian citizen, the leader of Al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent, was killed by international forces last year in Afghanistan.
The FO statement also claimed that earlier reports by the UN team had also emphasised the “growing strength of ISIL in India and its role in Easter Sunday attack in 2019 in Sri Lanka.
It also discarded the “malicious Indian allegations” about the UN report saying there were terrorists “safe havens” in Pakistan. By asserting this, Indian MEA had “misrepresented” the report and also added that there was “no reference to ‘safe havens’ in Pakistan in the Monitoring Team report”.
Earlier, EurAsian Times quoting Indian media reports stated that -there are approximately 6,500 Pakistani terrorists operating in Afghanistan and Pak-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba facilitate the process of recruiting global terrorists into Afghanistan, citing the same UN report.
The report stated the Afghan Taliban’s role as a reliable counter-terrorism ally post the US-Taliban peace deal will need comprehensive analysis because of the “number of foreign terrorist fighters in search of a purpose and livelihood in Afghanistan, including up to 6,500 Pakistanis”.
Indian external affairs ministry had expressed “serious concern” about the leadership of al-Qaeda and a large number of foreign terrorists present in Afghanistan. The report, he said, “vindicates India’s long-standing position that Pakistan remains the epicentre of international terrorism”.
Denying these assertions, Pakistan FO termed these charges an attempt to “slander Pakistan and mislead the international community”. “The MEA’s distortion and falsification of the contents of the UN report and its concocted allegations reveal that India’s agenda is to create complications for the Afghan peace process. Pakistan has warned the world about the role of spoilers within and outside Afghanistan,” the FO said.
“There is no reference to ‘safe havens’ in Pakistan in the Monitoring Team (MT) report. The report is based on briefings provided in Afghanistan to the MT by certain quarters who have long expressed scepticism about the Afghan peace process. This scepticism is not shared by the larger international community, especially the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary-General,” the statement said.
