The seventeenth
meeting of the National Security Committee was chaired by Prime Minister Mr.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi today in Islamabad to review the emerging strategic
situation in the region and beyond. Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Minister for Foreign
Affairs, Prof Ahsan Iqbal, Minister for Interior, Mr. Khurram Dastgir, Minister
for Defence, General Zubair Mehmood Hayat, Chairman JCSC, General Qamar Javed
Bajwa, Chief of the Army Staff, Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi, Chief of the
Naval Staff, Air Chief Marshall SohailAman, Chief of the Air Staff, Mr. Miftah
Ismail, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs,
Lt. General Nasser Khan Janjua (Retd), National Security Advisor, Mr. Aizaz
Ahmad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, and senior civil and military
officials attended the meeting.
The National
Security Committee noted its deep disappointment with some of the recent
statements articulated by the American leadership. The Committee observed that the close interaction with
the US leadership followingthe initial pronouncement of President Trump’s
policy on South Asia had been useful in creating a better
understandingof each other’s perspectiveson the best way forward to
achievedurable peace and stability in Afghanistan. The visits of Secretary
Tillerson and Secretary Mattis were also seen by the Committee as robust and
forward-looking. The Committee observed that given this positive direction of
progression, recent statements and articulation by the American leadership were
completely incomprehensible as they contradicted facts manifestly, struck with
great insensitivityat the trust between two nations built over generations, and
negated thedecades of sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation – a nation that
has contributed sosignificantly to regional and global security and peace.
The
participants noted that over the past several years, Pakistan’s counter
terrorism campaign has served as a bulwark against possible expansion of scores
of terrorist organizations currently present in Afghanistan- a fact
acknowledged by US authorities at the highest levels. Most of these terrorists
have repeatedly launched cross border attacks against innocent Pakistanis with
impunity by exploiting presence of millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, a
porous Pak-Afghan border and large tracts of ungoverned spaces inside
Afghanistan.
The Committee
observed that Pakistan has fought the war against terrorism primarily out of
its own resources and at a great cost to its economy, and that even more
importantly the huge sacrifices made by Pakistan, including the loss of tens of
thousands of lives of Pakistani civilians and security personnel, and the pain
of their families, could not be trivialised so heartlessly by pushing all of it
behind a monetary value – and that too an imagined one.
The Committee
further observed that even today Pakistan was firmly supporting the US-led
international effort in Afghanistan; that it was continuously facilitating this
through vital lines of communications for smooth counter-terrorism operations
in Afghanistan by the international coalition; that as a result of Pakistan’s
counter-terrorism cooperation, Al-Qaeda had been decimated from the region; and
that it was mostly because of this support that Pakistan was suffering a brutal
backlash, including the killing of hundred of its schoolchildren by terrorists
based in Afghanistan.
The Committee
was of the firm view that the real challenges in Afghanistan were political
infighting, massive corruption, phenomenal growth of drug production and
expansion of ungoverned spaces inside Afghanistan full of sanctuaries for
multiple international terrorist organisations, posing a serious and direct
threat to Afghanistan, its neighbours and the entire region. The Committee
observed that Pakistan cannot be held responsible for the collective failure in
Afghanistan and that blaming allies certainly does not serve the shared
objective of achieving lasting peace in Afghanistan and the region.
The Committee
reached a consensus that despite all unwarranted allegations, Pakistan cannot
act in haste and will remain committed to playing a constructive role towards
an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process, not just for the sake of its own
people, but also for the peace and security of the region and international
community. The Committee reaffirmed that Pakistanis are a people who
hold dear their national pride, who are capable of defending their country, and
who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to counter terrorism and to work
for regional peace and stability.
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