Kathmandu: Afghanistan will not allow anybody to conduct “proxy wars” on its soil, war-torn country's President Ashraf Ghani said today, in a veiled warning to Pakistan.
“Collapse or failure of states result in ungoverned spaces that provide breeding ground for criminal enterprises in efforts of violence to form symbiotic relationship,” Ghani said in his address at the 18th SAARC Summit here.
“The relation becomes lethal when state actors embrace and sponsor these non-state actors, provide them with resources and sanctuaries and use them as proxies in their competition against others,” Ghani told SAARC leaders, including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Underlining the need for a united effort to curb terrorism, Ghani asked all the SAARC leaders to work sincerely to eliminate the menace and assured that Afghanistan “will not allow our territories to be used against any of our neighbours.”
“We will not permit anybody to conduct proxy wars on our soil,” he said, in a veiled warning to Pakistan.
Ghani said state sponsorship of non-state actors could have “blowback effects”, and described the aftermath of a suicide blast at a volleyball game in Afghanistan that killed 57 people on Sunday.
Ghani's predecessor Hamid Karzai also frequently accused Pakistan of trying to destabilise the Afghan government by providing safe havens to Taliban fighters.
Karzai, who was in New Delhi last week, had said that he had made best efforts to stop terrorism emanating from Pakistan and termed the recent blast at Wagah border, in which 55 Pakistanis were killed, as an instance of “snake biting the trainer”.
Addressing a lecture on ‘Afghanistan and Neighbourhood', organised by Delhi Policy Group in New Delhi, he had said, “I don't think there is an alternative (to improving and bettering relations with Pakistan)...A few weeks ago, al-Qaeda threatened India. A few days ago, at Wagah border, a horrific terrorist act.”
“We have to recognise those who have an interest in playing with the snake, the snake has already begun to bite the trainer,” he said, referring to the terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
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