The writer teaches at the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. The current state of Pakistan’s foreign relations could at best be termed dismal, a case in point being the state of its relations with its western neighbour. The two neighbours were only recently involved in a border clash; Pakistan’s forces responded to firing from the Afghan side, ostensibly as a reaction to Pakistan building a gate at the border to regulate cross-border traffic. Such firing incidents are…
Posts published in “Day: July 2, 2016”
The world is currently awash with humanitarian crises, with the refugee flow into Europe from the Maghrib and the Levant, the maritime graveyard that is the Mediterranean Sea and the vast pool of displaced people in Turkey — but the plight of Afghan refugees in Pakistan rarely merits a mention. There are nearly 1.6 million registered and one million unregistered Afghan refugees in Pakistan according to the UNHCR, figures widely regarded as reliable. Many of…
AMIDST rising hostility towards Afghan refugees by elements in the state apparatus and sections of the wider population, the government has once again deferred a final decision on the status of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The background to the latest six-month extension in the validity of the 1.5m Proof of Origin cards of Afghan refugees here is dispiriting.Last year, the federal government assembled a draft Comprehensive Policy on Voluntary Repatriation and Management of Afghan Nationals…
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday granted an extension in the stay of registered Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan for a further period of six months till December 31, 2016. The directive came the very day that the deadline had been set by the government after which the refugees were to repatriate regardless of their legal status.It is worth mentioning that there are only 100,000 registered refugees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and the rest of…
A 3-member group of Taliban’s suicide bombers led by Mawlawi Nematullah were arrested in a crackdown carried out by security forces in Helmand province, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) said in a statement on Thursday. Other arrested suspects named Rozi Khan and Kala Khan that wanted to conduct subversive activities in the province, the statement said. The statement added the NDS operatives seized a number of weapons, two motorbikes and explosives during the operation.http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/26032-group-of-suicide-bombers-arrested-in-helmand…
A reliable security source told TOLOnews on Friday morning that Hesarak district in Nangarhar is on the verge of falling to the insurgent Taliban. The source said four outposts of national and local police force members had fallen to Taliban on Thursday night, adding that two other outposts collapsed on Wednesday night. According to the source, the clash is now near the district chief’s office. The source added that police force members have criticized the…
The majority of the militants fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in Afghanistan are coming from Pakistan, Central Asian and Gulf countries. The National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar informed regarding the issue during a visit to the eastern Nangarhar province on Wednesday. The visit by Atmar followed five days after the loyalists of the terror group launched a major attack on police check posts in Kot district. Atmar…
Pakistan continues to pursue its hostile policies towards Afghanistan by supporting militant groups in their war efforts against the country, a number of Afghan political commentators said on Thursday. They claimed that Pakistan had now mobilized the Taliban under the guise of Daesh. Other countries were also coordinating with Pakistan in funding militant groups such as Daesh. “If there was a will to do it, we would be able to eliminate Daesh in Syria and…
Former lawmaker and leader of the National Participation Party of Afghanistan Najibulllah Kabuli has called on Hezb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar not to act on the instructions issued by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence which accused of supporting the Afghan militant groups. He was speaking during a press conference in Kabul today and asked Hekmatyar to positively answer to the demands of the Afghan people. Kabuli further added “Our message to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is to refrain from…
ISLAMABAD: A high level meeting held in Islamabad on Thursday decided to engage Afghanistan and UNHCR immediately and devise concrete steps to ensure early and sustained return of Afghan refugees to their homeland. It was held in pursuance of the Prime Minister’s directive with respect to six month extension accorded for the stay of registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The meeting was co-chaired by Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch and Advisor…
Islamabad: Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Thursday said Afghan refugees issue is quite serious and soon a national policy will be conceived to regulate their stay in Pakistan. Nisar’s remarks come in the backdrop of increasing anti-refugee rhetoric, especially from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan governments. But while the two governments are giving increasingly harsher warnings to Afghan refugees and asking them to leave, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mahmood Khan…