After taking control of Afghanistan’s defence and interior ministries through their proxies, Pakistan is trying to take over the country's finances also. Pakistan’s finance minister Shaukat Tarin told the Pakistani senate that Islamabad could devote its resources to Afghanistan to operate various affairs as the Taliban was out of power for two decades.
“They have no experience in running a country, we can send our own people to run their affairs,” Tarin reportedly told the senate on Thursday. He also informed the Pakistani parliamentarians that Pakistani currency will be used for two-sided trade with Afghanistan, as an alternative to the US dollar as the Taliban government is facing acute shortage of dollars after international financial institutions decided to freeze its assets.
Pakistan is running all the important institutions of Afghanistan after the visit of the ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed to Kabul who helped the Taliban’s formation of government. He has also been involved in Taliban’s quest of Panjshir by deploying Pakistani security forces along with the Taliban’s fighters.
Also read: Pak ISI mocks at UN — installs Haqqani network terrorists in key positions in Afghanistan
On Thursday, it was experts of the Pakistan air force who activated the radar system of the Kabul airport and now controls the Afghan airspace. The airport is no longer the Hamid Karzai International Airport, but simply Kabul International Airport, with the name of the country's former president removed. The Taliban white flags flew from the terminal, which was emblazoned, "The Islamic Emirate seeks peaceful and positive relations with the world."
The airport was extensively damaged in the frenzied final days of the US withdrawal from the country. While experts of Qatar airways repaired the tarmac and other necessary works, it was personnel of the Pakistani Air Force who operated the airport’s radar system. It was under their supervision, the first international commercial flight under Afghanistan's new Taliban interim government departed Kabul on Thursday carrying more than 100 foreigners, including some US and Afghan citizens
Pakistan has become a center of international diplomacy for Afghanistan also. Thursday was a busy day for the Pakistani military establishment and its civilian government. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Joseph Burns had a “fruitful” meeting on Afghanistan, with the Pakistani Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on Afghanistan.
On the other hand, Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani met the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on the same issue.
The Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi urged the world that now that the Taliban has formed their government, it is time to discard "old lenses" and proceed with a "realistic and pragmatic" approach on Afghanistan. Qureshi attended two key meetings on Afghanistan. First, he hosted a virtual meeting of the foreign ministers of Iran, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan where he suggested inviting Taliban-run Afghanistan to this regional forum of six countries. Later, he was part of another meeting co-hosted by the US secretary of state and the German foreign minister.
Though Pakistan has not officially recognised the Taliban government, it is trying to persuade other countries to accept the new reality and proceed accordingly. Batting for the Taliban, he asked the foreign institution to allow the Taliban govt to access to Afghanistan’s foreign reserves.
