KABUL (SW): Analysts believe Pakistan is aiming to deceive the U.S. with its symbolic moves of fixing its policies against terrorism.
A number of Pakistani diplomats serving in various capitals have attended an extensive review of the country’s policy in this regard at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad.
In its new strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia, U.S. President Donald Trump did not name any country as ‘enemy or terrorist’, but pronounced Pakistan as safe haven for terrorist groups.
Raziq Barq, a Pakistan-based writer, told Salam Watandar the moot at the MoFA in Islamabad would conclude on Thursday. He said the main objective of this huddle is to chalk-out a counter strategy for the situation that has emerged after the announcement of the new U.S. strategy. Barq informed that Pakistan’s foreign minister Khwaja Asif and the country’s representative at the U.N Maleha Lodhi told the Pakistani diplomats to propagate that the Haqqani Network and other terrorist groups are not present in Pakistan but are based in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have also vowed to take serious actions against groups that are deemed dangerous for the country.
Tofan Waziri, an analyst on security affairs, said Pakistan seems to be adopting a new strategy to deceive the Afghan government as well as the international community with such moves. He stressed the Kabul government should remain vigilant with its diplomacy and lobbying at the international level to counter such moves by Islamabad.
Commenting on this, Rustam Shah Momand, former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, said Islamabad is under increasing international pressure to flush the militants out of its soil. He stressed there is an absolute need for that.
This comes as the BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have issued a joint declaration in which they expressed worry about the terrorist groups in the region. "We, in this regard, express concern about the security situation in the region and violence caused by the Taliban, 'Islamic State'(IS)…, al Qaeda and its affiliates, including the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, TTP and Hizb ut-Tahrir," the BRICS leaders said in a joint declaration.
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