PESHAWAR, Jan 24: NWFP Governor Lt-Gen Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has termed the Taliban phenomenon “a creation of the circumstances caused by the disharmony amongst the Afghan groups and the western powers’ dissociation from the situation after the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan.”

Speaking at a seminar on “the role of the NWFP in the reconstruction of Afghanistan,” here on Thursday, he said the minority ethnic groups commanding Kabul, were indifferent towards the share of the Pakhtoons in the government.

Defending Pakistan’s Afghan policy, the governor denied that Islamabad had created the Taliban. They, he added, were purely “a product of the circumstance at that time.”

Responding to the critics of the Afghan policy, he said since 1979, these people had been criticising Pakistan’s every policy on Afghanistan on one or the other pretext.

The governor said: “We have been very kind towards the Afghan refugees who entered Pakistan during the war in their country. But, we opposed the economic migrants last year. Our people were confronted with a famine-like situation in the NWFP when the famine-hit Afghans were trying to enter Torkham.”

He said the so-called donor agencies had disengaged themselves from the relief work in 1995. They stopped all sorts of aid to the refugees and left them at the mercy of circumstances, he added.

Earlier, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairperson Afrasiab Khattak criticised Pakistan’s rigid and unrealistic policy on Afghanistan. “The Afghan policy was a complete failure. But, still our rulers are not ready to mend their ways,” he said.

Khattak urged the rulers to learn from history and refrain from repeating it.

He said instead of launching an Afghan policy the rulers had launched the Taliban in Afghanistan, who were nothing more than “a demolishing squad,” and they had demolished each and every institution in their country.

“We are used to send puppets in Afghanistan. Now, this practice must end. Afghanistan is not our client state. We should disengage ourselves from different groups. Let the Afghans decide their own fate,” he added.

For a peaceful and friendly border, he urged the government to stop interference in the affairs of tribal people and help facilitate traders visit to Afghanistan.