Kabul, Mar. 6 (ANI): Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has once again raised the ante against Pakistan by robustly telling media during a joint interaction with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Kabul that Pakistan has taken "no practical steps" to help Afghanistan fight terrorism.
Karzai also criticized influential Pakistani cleric Tahir Ashrafi for saying that suicide attacks in Afghanistan were justifiable because they target foreign occupiers.
The Government of Afghanistan and its officials continue to be angry and distrustful about Pakistan's checkered role in their country, so much so, that senior Afghan officials are not hesitant about publicly accusing Islamabad and the Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI), of covertly supporting the Taliban and other extremist groups.
According to a report published by the Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty (RFERL) web site, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai is on record, as saying that Pakistan has taken "no practical steps" to help Afghanistan fight terrorism.
The web site, which broadcasts to 21 countries in 28 languages, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia, has quoted Afghanistan's ex-spy chief, Rahmatullah Nabil, as saying that the United Nations needs to place the ISI on its global list of terrorist groups.
"A terrorist is blacklisted, but the person who issues the fatwa for them to act or who provides them with safe havens is not blacklisted. Any entity that gives support and shelter to terrorists must be blacklisted," Nabil said.
Nabil, who is now the Deputy Chairman of Afghanistan's National Security Council, also said Pakistan should not be allowed to participate in negotiations to reach a peace agreement with the Taliban.
"We have never seen any positive steps from Pakistan. Instead, they fire rockets that shell our people and land while our clerics, tribes, and children are martyred by their terrorists," he adds.
For Kabul to have the ISI blacklisted by the UN, it would have to make a request to the Al-Qaeda and Associated Individuals and Entities Committee, also known as the "Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee," which is chaired by Australia's ambassador to the UN and includes representatives from all 15 members of the Security Council, would then have to decide on the demand by consensus.
The RFERL web site further reveals in its report that much of Afgahnistan's anger is directly related to Ashrafi's legitimization of terrorist acts in Afghanistan.
Ashrafi may have backtracked from the statement, but the web site quotes Michael Kugelman, South Asia associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, as suggesting that Kabul's recent criticism could be a sign of its frustrations with efforts to reach a peace settlement with the Taliban.
Kugelman also leaves open the possibility that the strong reaction by Nabil could be driven by political considerations, with presidential elections scheduled to take place in Afghanistan in 2014.
Whatever the case, Kugelman says this aggressive reaction from Kabul does not bode well for future Afghan-Pakistani relations. (ANI)
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