Afghanistan has been a key player in Asian geopolitics owing to its geostrategic and geopolitical location. Being situated at the crossroads of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, it has been a transit and transport hub since the ancient Silk route. In the context of global affairs, its central location and borders with six other nations including Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkmenistan have made it a hot-bed for conflict and cooperation.
With little more than a month left before US forces complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the government of Afghanistan has alleged that Pakistan has ramped up support for the Taliban militant group. A few days back only, Amrullah Saleh, the Vice President of Afghanistan, alleged that the Pakistan Air Force was providing close air support to the Taliban. During the series of tweets by the Vice President, he mentioned that Pakistan had warned Afghanistan aircraft to stay away from Spin Boldak or risk getting shot down.
Meanwhile, Uzbekistan hosted a two-day high-level meeting in the capital city of Tashkent on July 15 and 16 to discuss the ‘challenges and opportunities in Uzbekistan‘. Around 250 participants and 40 delegates from different countries took part in the discussion; the conference was titled “The International Conference on Central and South Asia Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities”.
During the conference there was angry exchange of conversation between Ashraf Ghani and Imran Khan, when the former accused Pakistan behind the rising violence in Afghanistan, as they support the Taliban. This has also led to the cancellation of a conference of Afghan leaders which Islamabad had convened over the weekend.
Recently, the daughter of the Afghan envoy to Islamabad was abducted and beaten up. The Afghan government has recalled its ambassador and senior diplomats from Islamabad for now. The Pakistan government has tried to downplay the incident. Contradictory signals are emanating from Islamabad as to what happened. A senior minister in the Imran Khan government has publically said that the lady was not abducted. The incident will create apprehensions among the resident diplomatic community in Islamabad.
The Taliban are simply not interested in a power-sharing arrangement with the Ghani government. Their strategy is to capture as much territory as possible. The Taliban have resumed their old ways of governance in the areas that they have occupied. The women are being confined to homes, girls schools are being closed and sharia law is being imposed in the territories they did one.
Taliban’s working is a threat to the regional as well as global security. With the increasing involvement of Pakistan and China in Afghanistan is creating dangerous situation for India particularly. Although India has been working continually to make things work yet instances like the Taliban publicly praising China and offering that they would not allow the Afghan territory to be used by militants against China is making things more and more difficult. There is a need for International community to come and put pressure on these countries not to be involved with the Taliban and to make sure peace and stability prevails in the region.
