Pakistan violating sovereignty of other nations: Afghanistan to UN

United Nations, June 22: In a scathing attack, Afghanistan has accused "elements within the state structure of Pakistan" of facilitating most of the terrorist groups active in the region and said the country needs political will and not 'nuclear deals or F-16s' to take action against terrorists.

In his statement to the powerful UN Security Council on the debate on UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) here yesterday, Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the UN Mahmoud Saikal said Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was "tracked" and killed in Pakistan's Balochistan in an American drone strike.

The incident "exposed" that Mansour had a Pakistani passport in a fake name that he had used to fly numerous times from Pakistani airports. "Despite this, the charade of plausible deniability, duplicity, and blame of Afghan weaknesses continues, which must come to an end if we are to succeed in counter-terrorism," he said.

Saikal accused "elements within the state structure of Pakistan" of facilitating most of the terrorist groups active in the region and warned that a country using "good and bad terrorists" against each other is "playing with fire".

He further pointed out that in the past 15 years, numerous leading figures of terrorism, including bin Laden and Taliban leaders Mullah Omar and Mansour have lived and died in Pakistan.

"The fact that notorious terrorist leaders were found and killed in their safe havens there is a clear proof that the country has violated the sovereignty of other nations,"” he said adding that this constitutes a flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolutions on the Sanctions Regime against the Taliban.

"We believe that there is an urgent need for proper implementation of the existing counter terrorism resolutions of the UN Security Council," he said.

Saikal quoted President Ashraf Ghani's address to joint sitting of the National Assembly where the Afghan leader had called on Pakistan to respect the QCG agreements and take action against terrorists who have their bases and leaders in the neighboring country.

"We believe that there is a need for political will and honest police action -- rather than nuclear deals or F-16s -- to fulfil the task," of taking action against the terrorists.

PTI