-Warns World must brace for huge mess if Pakistan’s advice on Afghanistan is ignored
-Worries about hub of extremist organizations in Afghanistan if mistakes repeated
-Says the government in Kabul has to be formed by Afghans
By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has warned of potential spillovers from the Afghan crisis, saying the world would have to deal with a “huge mess” if Pakistan’s advice on the war-ravaged country was ignored.
In an interview with Turkish State media on Monday, Chaudhry said the world must listen to Pakistan as “in the recent past, Pakistan’s advice had not been paid heed to, and if Pakistan and the prime minister’s advice was listened to, the situation would have been different.”
The minister said the situation in Afghanistan was “very worrying” for Pakistan, recalling that “we had to deal with the problems when the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1988.”
He said that while the Troika Plus, comprising Russia, China, US and Pakistan, had an important role to play in solving the Afghan conflict, the other group consisting of Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and other central Asian states too needed to take an active role to help resolve the crisis.
Chaudhry continued that Pakistan was yet again in a quagmire as the US and Nato forces were leaving Afghanistan. He cautioned that Pakistan was already hosting 3.5 million Afghan refugees, adding “that our economy is not that strong to take more refugees”.
“The way Afghanistan has been abandoned in the past and if the world repeats the same mistake, we will have hub of extremist organisations right at the border of Pakistan which will obviously be hugely worrying for us,” he cautioned.
The minister insisted that Pakistan was trying its best to stabilise the region as “we are working with regional and international powers for an inclusive government in Afghanistan.”
