Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Munir Akram, has called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to pressure the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan to cut ties with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and halt cross-border attacks by the group, state media reported on Saturday.
Islamabad attributes the recent surge in attacks to the presence of Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, leaders in Afghanistan. According to Pakistan, these leaders have found refuge and established training camps to launch attacks on Pakistani soil. In contrast, Kabul maintains that the increasing violence in Pakistan is a domestic issue and insists that it does not permit militants to operate within its territory.
The TTP, which pledges allegiance to and derives its name from the Afghan Taliban, is not directly a part of the ruling group in Afghanistan. Its goal is to enforce Islamic religious law in Pakistan, similar to the Taliban’s actions in Afghanistan.
“I urge the UNSC to call on the Taliban government to sever its links with the TTP and its associates, prevent them from carrying out cross-border attacks against Pakistan, disarm the TTP terrorists, capture their leadership, and hand them over to Pakistan,” Akram stated in an address to the 15-member council, as reported by the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). Pakistan was recently elected as a non-permanent member of the council.
“The impunity which some of these terrorist groups seem to enjoy within Afghanistan poses a dire and direct threat to all of Afghanistan’s neighbors as well as to the international community,” Akram added.
Akram criticized the Taliban government for not acting decisively to curb the TTP’s militant activities despite assurances.
“The highest priority – for the international community, for Afghanistan’s neighbors, and for Afghanistan itself – remains the elimination of terrorism within and from Afghanistan,” the envoy emphasized.
The TTP is responsible for some of the most devastating attacks in Pakistan, including assaults on churches, schools, and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in 2012, who was targeted for advocating women’s education.
Pakistani forces effectively dismantled the TTP and killed most of its top leaders through a series of military operations starting in 2014 in the tribal areas, driving most of the fighters into neighboring Afghanistan, where Islamabad claims they have regrouped.