ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s newly appointed defense minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif announced on Wednesday his country did not seek armed conflict with Afghanistan but flexed its muscle to clearly signal that cross-border militancy had reached an unacceptably high level.
The statement came after Pakistan launched airstrikes against militant hideouts along its border with Afghanistan on March 18, seen as a response to a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan that killed seven soldiers, including two officers, days earlier.
Pakistan has consistently stated that militants find sanctuary in Afghanistan and use its territory to target its civilian population and security forces, urging Kabul’s administration to prevent such attacks.
In November last year, Pakistan’s caretaker administration accused the Afghan interim government of ignoring Pakistan’s security concerns and allowing groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to operate from its territory, a concern Asif reiterated in a Voice of America interview.
“Force is the last resort. We do not want to have an armed conflict with Afghanistan,” he said. “A message needed to be sent that this [cross-border terrorism] has grown too much.”
Asif maintained Pakistan had the option of blocking the corridor it provides to landlocked Afghanistan to facilitate its trade with India.
“If Afghanistan treats us like an enemy, then why should we give them a trade corridor?” he asked.
The minister said the Taliban administration in Kabul was allowing TTP fighters to operate against Pakistan to stop its members from joining Daesh militants who posed a major internal security threat for Afghanistan.
He said Pakistan would protect its interest, irrespective of how the international community viewed its ongoing tensions with Afghanistan.