US retains ability to conduct operations against terrorism in Pak-Afghan region
Jul 22, 2023
Washington [US], July 22 : The Taliban has promised to keep terrorists out of Afghanistan, but the United States has stated that it still has the ability to carry out its own operations against terrorism in the Pak-Afghan region, Dawn reported.
Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the US State Department, made these remarks in response to a query regarding recent terrorist assaults carried out within Pakistan from terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan.
Nine soldiers were killed last week when terrorists assaulted a military facility in Zhob, Balochistan. The military's media branch, ISPR, released a statement shortly after the incident, expressing "serious concerns" about the existence of terrorist "safe havens" in Afghanistan and urging Kabul not to allow terrorists to utilise their territory for carrying out strikes inside Pakistan, according to Dawn.
Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper that was launched in 1941.
The message also served as a reminder to the caretaker Afghan government of their obligations under the Doha Agreement. The US military finally left Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, in compliance with the agreement that the US and Afghan Taliban signed in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020.
Asked if the US expects the Taliban rulers to abide by the commitments they made in Doha, Mille said, “I will say that we will hold them to their commitments. But as we have said before, we retain the ability to conduct our own operations in the region to ensure that, regardless of any promises that the Taliban make and regardless of their relative ability or willingness to uphold them.”
He added that the United States retains the right to protect American interests. Asked how confident he was that the Taliban would keep their promises, Miller said, “I don’t want to express any amount of confidence or lack of confidence", reported Dawn.
To a question about the Pakistani government’s plan to hold elections in early October, the US official said, “I will make clear that we support the peaceful upholding of fundamental democratic principles such as free media, free speech, freedom of assembly.”
The United States, he said, champions the rule of law, not just in Pakistan but around the world. “These principles are the foundations for democratic elections. I have spoken to this both with respect to Pakistan specifically and of course, as it relates to other countries on numerous occasions,” Miller added.
Responding to another question about an attack on a 150-year-old temple in Karachi, he said, “We support the free exercise of religion anywhere in the world and oppose any attempts or uses of violence to suppress that right of people to exercise their freedom of religion", Dawn reported.
