UNITED NATIONS, Dec 21: Pakistan called upon the international community on Thursday not to walk away from Afghanistan “once the immediate objectives of the military campaign are achieved.”

Expressing full support for the United Nations efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad told the UN General Assembly meeting on Afghanistan, that the long-term solution of the problem of terrorism in Afghanistan lay in the restoration of peace and stability and reconstruction of that country.

“An Afghanistan at peace with itself and at peace with its neighbours is the sure safeguard, in the future, against any terrorist activity emanating from within its borders.”

Ahmad also called on the UN Security Council to rescind the Taliban-specific sanctions resolutions 1267 and 1333 which had lost their validity after the elimination of the regime from the Afghan territory.

He pointed out that there was now Security Council resolution 1373 with wider scope and reach which had made the Taliban-specific resolutions 1267 and 1333 redundant.

“Once the current military campaign in Afghanistan is successfully over, all the resources that were mobilized for intrusive and punitive mechanisms under these resolutions should be placed at the disposal of Ambassador Brahimi (secretary general’s special envoy to Afghanistan) so that he could use them, if he so requires, appropriately and constructively to rebuild Afghanistan,” Ahmad observed.

He said: “Tomorrow’s Afghanistan will need the UN not as a policeman hunting for criminals but as a healer and builder, promoting reconciliation and reconstruction of this war-torn nation.”

Ambassador Ahmad said Pakistan welcomed the swearing in of Hamid Karzai, as the head of the interim administration. “We shall extend our full support and cooperation not only to the interim administration, but also to the subsequent governments of Afghanistan, transitional or other-wise, in their efforts to restore peace and stability to Afghanistan.

“Pakistan remains fully committed to maintaining fraternal ties with Afghanistan and would be ready to assist in its rehabilitation and reconstruction. To this end the President of Pakistan has proposed the establishment of an Afghan Trust Fund under UN auspices to assist in humanitarian relief as well as national reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in Afghanistan,” he said.

Saying that Afghans were not the only victims of the Afghan tragedy, he pointed out that Pakistan had also suffered. Ahmad said for almost two-and- a-half decades, we had been providing shelter to almost three million Afghan refugees with little or no help from the international community.

He underscored that Pakistan’s economy had been suffering and continued to suffer because of the situation in Afghanistan.

“Rampant terrorism as well as the culture of drugs and guns that we call the ‘Kalishnikov culture’ tearing apart our social and political fabric was also a direct legacy of the protracted conflict in Afghanistan. Given this bleak scenario, no country in the world has suffered more from the conflict in Afghanistan than Pakistan and no country could have a greater stake in the return of peace and stability to Afghanistan than Pakistan.

“We are turning a new leaf in Afghanistan. Let this augur well for its people and for the world community. Pakistan, like the rest of the international community, hopes that this new era will bring positive changes in Afghanistan,” Ahmad said.