By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani envoy to the United Nations Dr. Maleeha Lodhi has expressed concern that any delay in the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan could threaten the peace agreement with the Taliban.
Dr. Lodhi expressed these concerns in Dunya News program “Dunya Kamran Khan Kay Saath” on Tuesday. She said that if the Doha agreement gets terminated, the peace process in Afghanistan would be jeopardized. Pakistan should inform the Biden administration of this danger as it would pose a huge challenge for Pakistan, she added.
Talking about Pak-US relations in the interview, she said that the US was reviewing its Afghan policy, so the withdrawal could be delayed. Afghanistan is a big issue, we have to see how we can cooperate going forward.
Regarding the case of Shakeel Afridi, she said that Pakistan would abide by its own laws. There can be no negotiation for a person spying for America and neither is it necessary that we do whatever America wants, she added.
Asked about Daniel Pearl’s case and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s telephone call with US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, she said relations with the Biden administration began on a negative note but we remain unaffected. Dr. Lodhi said the message given to the United States was that Pakistan would pursue every legal route against the acquittal but it is bound to abide by the court’s decision. She added that whenever both countries’ interests overlapped, Pakistan extended cooperation to the US. She said it was not necessary that Pak-US relations would derail just because the Secretary of State said so, as he himself acknowledged that Pakistan has been instrumental in stabilizing the region.
The former envoy said Pakistan’s strategic choice is China while the United States has sided with India. Therefore, US-China tensions could spill over and affect Pak-US relations as well.
“National interest is permanent, the rest is temporary”, she said.
Days earlier US-led troops will remain in Afghanistan beyond the deadline laid down in a peace deal with the Taliban because the militants have failed to comply with the agreement, NATO officials said on Sunday.
The move casts doubt on the future of the agreement signed last year, under which international troops would withdraw before May in return for the insurgents fulfilling security guarantees.
The Afghan government and others say the Taliban has failed to meet the deal’s conditions, with an escalation in violence and a failure to cut ties with militant groups such as Al-Qaeda.
“There will be no full withdrawal by allies by the end of April,” a senior NATO official said. “Conditions have not been met. “And with the new US administration there will be tweaks in the policy, the sense of hasty withdrawal that was prevalent will be addressed, and we could see a much more calculated exit strategy.”
President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman Dawa Khan Menapal told Arab News: “We have a partnership against joint threats with NATO, which is led by America. Our campaign is also a joint one, and any decision will be taken after evaluating the threat jointly too.”
There are an estimated 10,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, in addition to US soldiers. The NATO said troop levels were expected to stay about the same until after May, but the plan beyond that was not clear.
