Pakistan Should Not Be Blamed For Failed US-Taliban Peace Talks – Imran Khan

Pakistan PM Imran Khan said that it is unfair to blame Islamabad for failed negotiations between the US and Taliban over Afghanistan settlement plan. In an exclusive interview to RT, Khan stressed the damage that Pakistan endured by supporting the war on terror post 9/11 attacks.

“Had we not participated in the American war after 9/11, we would not have been the world’s most dangerous country,” said the premier.

Reiterating his stance against the US invasion of Afghanistan, Khan reminisced that the Afghan Mujahideen had been trained to fight by Pakistan with funding coming by America’s Central Investigation Agency (CIA) in the 1980s when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

“A decade later when the Americans come into Afghanistan, the same groups in Pakistan are supposed to say that now because the Americans are there, it is not longer Jihad – it is terrorism,” he said while underscoring the contradiction in rhetoric.

“I strongly felt that Pakistan should have been neutral,” he continued. “Because by joining in [Afghan war], these groups turned against us.”

Khan added that the country lost 70,000 lives and suffered a loss of over $100 billion to the economy. “And in the end, we were blamed for the Americans not succeeding in Afghanistan,” he noted. “I felt it was very unfair to Pakistan.”

Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump announced to cancel talks with the Afghan Taliban after the insurgent group claimed the deadly Kabul attacks which killed 12 people including one US soldier.