PESHAWAR, Oct 11: Afghanistan has to be reinvented, and for this Kabul should be taken over by the United Nations, says chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Afrasayab Khattak.

Talking to Dawn on Wednesday, Mr Khattak, an expert on Afghanistan and Central Asia, said that restoration of peace to Afghanistan could only be guaranteed through Kabul’s taking over by the UN and recruitment of 15,000 to 20,000 Afghans under the UN cap to help establish writ of the law and revive a legitimate state structure.

Instead of deploying foreign troops inside Afghanistan, these should be maintained in the region to “put the fear of God in the hearts of warlords” in an effort to allow Loya Jirga to take place, said Mr Khattak.

Allowing the Northern Alliance to take over Kabul would be “putting the clock back” as it would unleash yet another era of revengeful killing in the Afghan capital.

In reply to a question, the HRCP chief said that there was a deep crisis of legitimacy [legitimate government] in Afghanistan which could only be resolved by bringing former king Zahir Shah back to Afghanistan, for he had the historic legitimacy to rule the country.

“He [the king] personifies the unity for being a Pashtoon by birth and a Persian in mannerism,” said Mr Khattak who saw the old age and inactivity of the king as his strength. Zahir Shah, he added, would not be part of bloodshed and would be neutral to help the country adopt a proper system of governance.

Although warlordism is deep rooted in Afghanistan, the vacuum is too big to fill in by people like Commander Abdul Haq and Pir Gillani [two known former warlords presently busy making efforts to replace the Taliban through their sympathizers and supporters], hence the solution to the Afghan issue lay in a negotiated settlement only.

“This the time when the Afghan problem should be addressed by the Afghans politically, and not by those supported by the CIA, ISI, and Iranian or Russian secret service,” said Mr Khattak in reply to a question about the efforts initiated by some former Afghan warlords.

“It [Afghan crisis] is a political thing now, they might have been good warlords but they are not politicians”.

The HRCP chairman saw a new conflict between the countries of north and the south as a result of US-led attacks on Afghanistan. This region, he added, had deep socio-economic resources and difficulties, too.

Nobody, said Mr Khattak, seemed talking about Afghans as their country “kissed to death” by its so-called friends — Britain and Russia — invaded it to save it for their own reasons; Pakistan and Iran poured weapons into it for their own interests, and now the USA invaded it to root out terrorism.

“Taliban are not an indigenous Afghan phenomenon, rather they are something engineered by Pakistan and America to replace the Jihadi organizations,” said Mr Khattak, adding “America and Britain liked the Taliban to contain Iranian influence in the region in 1994-95 and extended support to it to guarantee passage to the gas pipeline”.

For Pakistan, he continued, Taliban were a squad to demolish the Afghan state, limb by limb, as part of Islamabad’s strategy to protect its interests in the region against India.

“Countries neighbouring Afghanistan have their share in ruining the Afghan identity as the country has no flag, no national anthem,” said Mr Khattak. Amongst the countries bordering the war-ravaged country, only Pakistan would want a united Afghanistan, said Mr Khattak.

“Pakistan has been supporting Mujahideen who could not transform Afghanistan into a civilized country, then they invested in the Taliban and now when Islamabad doesn’t have many horses to bet on it has found a great opportunity to turn its weakness into its strength by depicting itself as a neutral state,” observed Mr Khattak.