ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) today (Monday) has clarified Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s recent remarks regarding the Afghan government’s responsibility to monitor and keep the Daesh militants in the country in check.
“It is regrettable that certain sections of the media have misquoted and twisted the foreign minister’s remarks about the need for peace and stability in Afghanistan through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process,” the FO Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said in a statement.
Chaudhri clarified that Qureshi had “clearly spoken” about the consensus among the international community, the regional players and the Afghans themselves “against the menace of terrorism”.
“His remarks cannot be in anyway be misconstrued as advocacy for a particular side in the Afghan conflict,” the spokesman said, reiterating that Pakistan favoured no particular side in Afghanistan.
“We see all sides in the conflict as Afghans who need to decide about their future themselves. We will continue to play a constructive facilitation role in the Afghan peace process,” he added.
The FO stressed that all energies should be focused on finding an “inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive” political settlement to the Afghan conflict.
On Saturday, FM Qureshi’s statement in which he categorically stated that it was the Afghanistan government’s responsiblity to monitor presence of Daesh in the country and keep it from growing, was misinterpreted by the media.
Last week, Russia had warned that IS fighters were moving into Afghanistan amid the rapidly deteriorating security situation. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said the militants were coming from Syria, Libya and several other countries.
