Pakistan sits out Moscow meeting of regional countries on Afghanistan

A Pakistani policeman stands guard outside the Pakistan's Foreign Ministry building in Islamabad on September 2, 2019. (AFP/File)

• The NSA-level meeting of regional countries on the war-torn state was first launched by India in November 2021
• Experts say Pakistan has decided not to participate in any initiative on Afghanistan that is launched by New Delhi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office said on Thursday the country deliberately decided to stay away from an ongoing conference on Afghanistan in Moscow, though it reiterated its commitment to be part of any initiative that had the potential to strengthen the peace and security of the war-ravaged country.
The two-day conference of national security advisors (NSA) of regional states began on Wednesday and brought together officials from India, China and Iran along with Central Asian countries.
This is the fifth round of the dialogue that was originally initiated by India in November 2021. Pakistan took the decision to skip the Moscow meeting at a time when it is trying to procure discounted oil from Russia and planning to jointly construct a gas pipeline with it.
“We have chosen not to participate in the Moscow meeting of regional stakeholders,” foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told journalists during her weekly news briefing, adding that her country was willing to attend all international initiative focusing on Afghan peace and security that could lead to constructive discussion.
Pakistan also decided to refuse India’s invitation to the NSA-level meeting on Afghanistan in 2021 by describing the administration in New Delhi as “a spoiler” which was not in a position to play the role of a peacemaker.
“Pakistan’s stance has been very clear over the years that it will not be part of any initiative on Afghanistan which has been taken by India,” Abdul Basit Khan, Afghan affairs expert and research fellow at a Singapore-based think tank, told Arab News.
He added that another reason behind Islamabad’s decision of not participating in the conference could be its administration’s suspicion that India was instigating militant factions based in Afghanistan to intensify attacks in Pakistani cities.
“In my opinion, Pakistan should have gone [to Moscow] instead of leaving the field empty,” Khan continued. “Islamabad should have conveyed categorically and unequivocally Pakistan’s point of view on Afghanistan instead of leaving the seat.”
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have been strained in recent months due to border skirmishes and an uptick in violence across the country by a proscribed militant network, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whose leaders are said to be based in Afghanistan.
Pakistani authorities have formally urged the interim Taliban government not to let armed groups use its territory to target other states.
Last December, Pakistan’s diplomatic mission in Kabul also came under attack in what was described by officials in Islamabad as an “assassination attempt” against their country’s chargé d’affaires.
“Pakistan’s Chargé d'affaires to Afghanistan, Ambassador Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani, is still in Pakistan,” Baloch told journalists during the briefing in response to a question, “and we are considering all the circumstances that would require his return.”