Sardar Ahmad Shakib, the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan, says that due to the wars and security developments of the past several decades, the security calculations of Afghanistan and Pakistan have become deeply interconnected.
Speaking at Pakistan’s National Defence University in Islamabad, Shakib said that Afghanistan and Pakistan are not merely neighboring countries; they are deeply connected through geography, economic ties, social relations, trade, transit, and the movement of people between the two countries.
According to Shakib, political, security, and economic developments in either country directly affect the other. He stressed that this interdependence should be harnessed to promote stability, security, and shared economic interests rather than to fuel tensions.
The Taliban ambassador called on Pakistan to move beyond its previous perceptions of Afghanistan and assess the country’s current situation based on today’s realities. He said that a “new political reality” had emerged in Kabul after 2021, and that Afghanistan today is no longer the Afghanistan of the Cold War era, the 1990s, or the period of foreign military and political influence following 2001.
Shakib said that Afghanistan does not want its territory to be used against Pakistan. At the same time, however, he said Afghanistan cannot accept Pakistan’s security concerns being used as a justification for military action on Afghan soil.
He added that if Pakistan expects Afghanistan to cooperate regarding its specific security concerns, Afghanistan likewise wants to raise its own security concerns directly with Pakistan and engage in dialogue over them.
Writer:Saeed Sameer
