What Pakistan will gain from Afghanistan peace talks?
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MIRAMSHAH - Pakistani military hopes that after the restoration of peace, the Kabul administration would act against the groups using the Afghan soil as a springboard for launching attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistani security officials have long said that the outlawed terrorist groups – especially the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Khorasan franchise of Islamic State, also known by its Arabic acronym Da’ish – orchestrate and mount attacks in Pakistan from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan’s border regions.
Most deadly terrorist attacks in Pakistan have been traced to eastern Afghanistan, where the TTP and Da’ish maintain safe havens in the areas where Kabul has no writ.
“We hope that after the war ends [as a result of the ongoing reconciliation process] Afghanistan will be able to focus on groups like the TTP and Da’ish, which carry out attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan should then focus on eliminating these threats to Pakistan,” the chief military spokesperson, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said in an exclusive interview with *The Express Tribune* on Sunday.
He said Pakistan wished for the success of the reconciliation process. “Pakistan is relatively peaceful but if your neighbourhood is disturbed, it will have an impact on you,” said Maj-Gen Ghafoor, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
Before the fence had been erected, terrorist groups used to take advantage of the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and sneaked in to carry out attacks on Pakistani border posts and villages, he said.
“Our area is under control now but the Afghans don’t have control on their side, which is why the Chief of Army Ataff (COAS) came up with the idea of fencing the border,” the military spokesperson said. “The fence has made it difficult for terrorists to cross the border. It has stopped cross-border terrorism and physical attacks are coming to an end.
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