Pakistan rejects claims of fuelling violence in Afghanistan

NEW YORK: A Pakistani diplomat has debunked the allegations made in an article published in a leading American newspaper last week that Pakistan had facilitated the recent Taliban offensive in Afghanistan.

The article titled ‘Pakistan’s Hand in the Rise of International Jihad’ was written by Carlotta Gall, a New York Times correspondent who reported from Pakistan from 2001-13.“It is strange that Ms Gall, instead of acknowledging Pakistan’s sincerity, is somehow blaming the country itself, the worst victim of terrorism, for the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan,” Nadeem Hotiana, press attaché at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, said in a rejoinder to the newspaper. “The whole world, including American officials and military commanders, is praising Pakistan’s successful military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas,” Hotiana wrote in his letter captioned ‘Don’t Blame Pakistan for Isis’ carried by the Times on Thursday.

“One has to fly really high on wings of imagination to link the escalating violence in Afghanistan with the presence of a few men hiding somewhere in Pakistan,” the diplomat said, adding, “Her reference to reports that Pakistan is responsible for the rise of Isis in the Middle East ignores the increasingly complex regional politics.

“Likewise her suggestion that Pakistan was involved in moving 300 Pakistani jihadists to the core of the Isis fight is far-fetched.”The letter said, “Putting blame on Pakistan for every ill of the world may rather be construed as yet another attempt to undermine the fledgling reconciliation process in Afghanistan where Pakistan together with China and the United States is trying its best to bring peace to the region.”