UNITED NATIONS: The United States, Afghanistan and India ganged up against Pakistan at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday, with US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan claiming that Washington could not work with Islamabad if it “continued to give sanctuary to terrorist organisations”.

Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi forcefully countered the charges levelled at Pakistan and said that Afghanistan and its partners, especially the US, needed to address “the challenges inside Afghanistan rather than shift the onus for ending the conflict onto others”.

“Those who imagine sanctuaries outside need a reality check,” she stressed.

Mr Sullivan told the council that an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned approach to peace, with firm international support for Afghan security forces “will make clear to the Taliban that victory cannot be won on the battlefield; a solution is and must be political”.

Maleeha Lodhi calls for efforts to address safe havens inside land-locked country

He added: “We must recognise the reality that while the Afghan government has been adamant about its interests in initiating peace talks with the Taliban, there has been no reciprocal interest on the part of the Taliban. That must change.”

He called for international efforts to isolate the Taliban, and eliminate its sources of income and equipment.

Mr Sullivan also criticised unnamed countries for supporting the Taliban in the name of fighting the militant Islamic State group.

For his part, the Indian Ambassador to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, said it was “India’s vision to see Afghanistan regain its place”.

He added that New Delhi remained committed to working closely with its regional and international partners to bring peace, security, stability and prosperity to Afghanistan.

The Afghan deputy foreign minister, Hekmat Khalil Karzai, too reiterated the presence of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan.

He said: “We are pleased to note that the imperative of addressing the problem of regional terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens is now recognised more than ever before.”

But Ms Lodhi told the 15-member Security Council that with over 40 per cent of the Afghan territory out of the government’s control, the insurgency did not need outside support, especially with illicit drug trafficking providing the militant groups with a steady financial income estimated at millions of dollars a year.

“With its safe havens inside the country and income from the narcotics trade, the insurgency doesn’t need any outside assistance or ‘support centres’ to sustain itself,” the ambassador asserted.

She reacted sharply to the Indian permanent representative’s statement that “mindsets in Pakistan contributed to instability in Afghanistan”, and said: “Those who talk of changing mindsets need to look within, at their own record of subversion against my country as our capture of an Indian spy [Kulbhushan Jadhav] has proven beyond doubt.”

Calling for a negotiated end to the war in Afghanistan, Ambassador Lodhi said the continued use of military force and escalation of the conflict without an accompanying political and diplomatic strategy would not yield any result “different from what we have seen”. “It will produce more violence and suffering for the Afghan people, not a political solution.”

She noted that despite the large presence of foreign military personnel and the huge outlays of external assistance, security had deteriorated and economic growth had remained anaemic in Afghanistan. The war, turmoil, terrorism, drugs and instability radiating from Afghanistan, she said, had “buffeted the entire region”.

The international community, Ambassador Lodhi said, had affirmed time and again, that sustainable peace was only achievable through a negotiated end to war. “The presidential statement the Council adopted this morning again reiterates this firm consensus,” she pointed out.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2018