By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan is likely to chair a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) on Monday (today) to discuss matters of national security in the wake of the current situation in Afghanistan. The meeting will discuss the current situation in Afghanistan and the security situation in the region.
The meeting will be attended by the services chiefs, intelligence officials and civilian leadership. It must be mentioned here that the Taliban entered Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday and said they expected to take power within days.
Taliban fighters were reaching the capital “from all sides,” a senior Afghan interior ministry official told Reuters.
However, there were no reports of fighting. The ease of the Taliban’s advance, despite billions of dollars spent by the United States and others to build up local Afghan government forces, has stunned the world.
Pakistan has always suggested a political settlement over a military solution in Afghanistan and now the world has acknowledged our position, said foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi while addressing media conference Sunday as Taliban inch closer to taking over Kabul.
He said the matter needs to be resolved via talks. To resolve the flare-up by means of talks and political negotiations has been the position Prime Minister Imran Khan has maintained for years now, Shah Mehmood Qureshi said. It is the watershed moment for the Afghan leadership, said the foreign minister, adding that Pakistan only seeks peace and stability for Afghans.
