ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Friday a bill moved in the United States’ Senate, which seeks to assess Islamabad’s role in Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban, was an attempt to “pass the buck,” the Pakistani state-run APP news agency reported.
This is the second such statement by Qureshi in as many days on the Afghanistan Counterterrorism, Oversight, and Accountability Act, which aims to address outstanding issues related to the Biden administration’s “rushed and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
The bill, which is being widely debated on in Pakistan, the US and the Western media, calls for a comprehensive report on who supported the Taliban during America’s 20 years in Afghanistan, helped the group in capturing Kabul in mid-August and supported the insurgents’ offensive on Panjshir Valley, the last part of Afghanistan that was still holding out against their rule until early this month.
“Let us not be excessively obsessed with the bill,” Qureshi said, in response to a question at a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart Jeppe Kofod. “There are lobbies in the US and our neighbors in the region who would like to play it up.”
He said Pakistan would not ignore the implications of the proposed bill, saying “we are cognizant and can explain”. The minister, however, said that scapegoating Pakistan would in fact mean “overlooking the ground realities.”
Despite being allies in the war on terror, Pakistan and the United States have had a complicated relationship, bound for decades by Washington’s dependence on Islamabad to supply its troops in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations that Pakistan was playing a “double game.” Islamabad denies the accusations.
Qureshi clarified that Pakistan would protect its interests and defend its position. “The US has to understand the role played by Pakistan in facilitating the peace process,” he said.
On Wednesday, the foreign minister said the bill moved in the US Senate was aimed at exerting internal political pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration.
The US was “in a state of trance” after having seen all its resources and superior technology fail in Afghanistan, he said in his first reaction.
Pakistan’s foreign office earlier also said the bill moved by US lawmakers was “completely unwarranted” and “inconsistent” with the spirit of US-Pakistan cooperation.
