Why Pakistan wants to help Afghan Taliban when they don’t even recognise border, asks Rabbani

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader and former Senate chairman Senator Raza Rabbani questioned the government’s eagerness on Friday to support the Afghan Taliban when they “did not even recognise the border”.

Read more: Afghan Taliban stop Pakistan army from fencing international border

Addressing a Senate session in Islamabad, Rabbani asked the government to take the parliament into confidence about a report that Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan disrupted the erecting of a security fence by the Pakistani military along the border between the two countries.

Pakistan has fenced most of the 2,600 km (1,615 miles) border despite protestations from Kabul. The fencing was a main reason behind the souring of relations between previous US-backed Afghan governments and Islamabad.

Afghan Defence Ministry Spokesperson Enayatullah Khwarazmi also confirmed in a report that the Taliban stopped the Pakistani military from erecting a border fence along with the eastern province of Nangarhar last Sunday.

“Despite a ceasefire, various groups are reorganising in Afghanistan,” warned Rabbani today and added that the Taliban rose to power in Afghanistan on their strength.

Extremism in Pakistan 

Senator Rabbani said that the opposition and the ruling party were on the same table when it comes to dealing with extremism, but the government had failed to tackle it.

“The situation would have been different if measures were taken to deal with extremism,” he said in the Senate as it discussed an adjournment motion regarding the lynching of Sri Lankan national Priyantha Kumara in Sialkot recently.

“Extremists set up their own courts and the state kept on watching. Even when these people seem to have come under control, they do it on their own terms. The state can no longer afford secret agreements,” said Rabbani categorically.

“The state of Pakistan is looking for its foundations. Civil and military bureaucracy will have to answer to the parliament,” said Rabbani and asked the government to discuss the National Action Plan (NAP) in the upper house again.

Read more: Priyantha Kumara’s brother expresses desire to work for same Sialkot factory

He maintained that the state of Pakistan meant the civil and military bureaucracy of Pakistan and not the people sitting in the parliament.

“Extremist groups have set up parallel courts in cities and tribal areas and have challenged the writ of the state but the state remained silent.”