NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Afghanistan’s security is still a challenge for NATO because fighting and violence remains in Afghanistan.
He was addressing a gathering of academic personalities, researchers and Intellectuals and diplomates at University Warsaw. The question of Afghanistan’s situation was raised by Pakistani doctoral research scholar Syed Sibtain Shah during the NATO’s congregation. The researcher asked the NATO’s SG that after the death of Mullah Omar and Akhtar Mansour, the central figures of Afghan’s Taliban, do you think the Afghanistan’s security is still a challenge for NATO? Earlier too, similar apprehensions were expressed by different leaders and powers about dreaded instability in Afghanistan. Only a few weeks back, US President Obama predicted that the entire region would continue to face instability for decades to come and he also preferred to include Pakistan in the list of the countries that may remain instable. Views expressed by the NATO Secretary-General are also important and relevant as he represents the overall thinking of the entire Europe. We believe that the important players in Afghanistan are in a state of self-denial and unwilling to read the writing on the wall. They admit that Afghanistan would continue to face turbulence but miserably fail to contribute sincerely to efforts to restore peace in that country. The United States and its coalition partners have been using force in Afghanistan for over a decade in their bid to impose their will on Afghans but they have not succeeded in their designs. This is time to realize that the real cause of the conflict in Afghanistan is foreign intervention since 1970s aimed at denying Afghans an opportunity to decide their own future. Unfortunately, there is more focus on use of force to crush the will of the Afghan people than to facilitate them in the much-needed task of national reconciliation. We hope that NATO Secretary-General and the countries he represents would demonstrate wisdom and vision by opposing the policy of use of force in Afghanistan and instead would back the process of dialogue.
The Afghan conundrum: Can NATO meet the challenge of Afghan security
