KABUL (SW): Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has hailed the U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of his strategy to counter terror and stabilize South Asia.
Addressing the United Nations’ General Assembly, he said the strategy consolidates all instruments of American power, conveying a message that the Taliban and their backers cannot win militarily. “Only through political settlement can we achieve enduring peace and I call upon all ranks of Taliban to engage in an intra-Afghan dialogue”, he said.
President Ghani added there is an opportunity for a dialogue with neighbors to work together earnestly to eliminate terrorism and contain extremism. “I call upon Pakistan to engage with us on a comprehensive state to state dialogue on peace, security and regional cooperation leading to prosperity”, Ghani told the UNGA. The President added the war in Afghanistan is not within the country’s soil, but is over its soil.
In his remarks, the Afghan President said sixteen years after the tragedy of September 11, the threat of violence by non-state actors has taken the form of a Fifth Wave of political violence and terrorism. “Driven by transnational terrorist networks, criminal organizations, cyber-crime and state sponsorship of terror, this Fifth Wave promises to be a decades-long threat to international security rather than a passing phenomenon”, he said.
The President urged the world must confront the threat of terrorism as a united force, and meet it with a long-term solution that matches the long-term agenda of the terrorists themselves.
ENDS
