Kabul, Dec 4 Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has accused Pakistan of trying to impose "mysterious projects" on Kabul and using economic pressure, border shutdown and political leverage to destabilise the Taliban administration, local media reported on Thursday.
While addressing a gathering in Kabul on Wednesday, Muttaqi said that Pakistan hoped that people in Afghanistan would be angry and pressure the Taliban administration after the former shut trade routes.
However, he said that Pakistan's border shutdown did not cause shortage or unrest in Afghanistan and said that other regional partners supplied essential goods to Kabul, Afghanistan's leading news agency, Khaama Press reported.
He said that Pakistan has been engaged in long-standing disputes with almost all of its neighbours and is pressurising Afghanistan with what he termed as "unrealistic and unacceptable" security demands.
He stressed that the Taliban has already taken measures to address concerns of the Pakistani administration, including shifting Waziristani tribal families away from the frontier and deploying additional border forces in the past four years.
He said Pakistan expects the Taliban to "deliver everything" while Islamabad itself is unable to resolve its own internal security problems.
He also slammed Pakistan's political system, stressing that decision-making is divided between civilian leaders and the military, making negotiations inconsistent and difficult.
Amir Khan Muttaqi defended Afghanistan's expanding ties with India, terming them "legitimate political and economic relations of a sovereign state", and raised questions over Pakistan's objections to Taliban leaders' visits to New Delhi.
On November 29, Kabul said that its forces stand fully prepared to respond to any violation of Afghanistan's territory, warning Pakistan that recent cross-border tensions will be met with decisive action, local media reported.
"Taliban authorities showcased hundreds of newly-graduated commandos this week as tensions with Pakistan rose sharply along the border. At a ceremony attended by senior officials, Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar said Afghanistan would not tolerate any violation of its territory and was prepared to respond to any aggression," Khaama Press reported.
According to the Taliban Defence Ministry, the new commando units have received "full ideological and military training" and were ready to defend Afghanistan's borders.
"Baradar warned neighbouring countries not to test the patience of Afghans and not to view Afghanistan's territory with ill intent. During the ceremony, Taliban forces carried out helicopter manoeuvres and ground tactics to demonstrate operational readiness. The ministry said any foreign force seeking to breach Afghanistan soil would face a decisive response," the news agency reported.
Last week, the Taliban regime strongly condemned the Pakistani air strikes in the Afghan provinces of Paktika, Khost and Kunar, describing them as an infringement of the country's sovereignty and a violation of all internationally recognised norms.
On November 25, the Afghan government said that at least 10 civilians, including nine children, were killed after Pakistani forces struck a residential area in Khost, while separate air strikes in Kunar and Paktika injured four civilians.
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the caretaker Afghan government, took to his social media platform, stressing that a necessary response would be taken at a proper time.
"The airstrikes carried out last night by Pakistani forces in Afghanistan's Paktika, Khost, and Kunar provinces constitute a direct assault on Afghanistan's sovereignty and a clear breach of internationally recognised norms and principles by the Pakistani authorities," Mujahid posted on X.
"These hostile actions by Pakistani forces achieve nothing; they only prove that operations driven by flawed intelligence inflame tensions and expose the ongoing failures of Pakistan's military regime," he added.
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