Opinion | Pakistan can help win peace in Afghanistan, but only once it’s stable and secure itself

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s recent call for enduring peace in Afghanistan, even if unoriginal, is laudatory in the prescriptions he offers. Chief among them being Pakistan’s role as honourable facilitator and the caution against early international withdrawal.

Consider the events that have occurred in Pakistan since the advent of Covid-19. By declaring in parliament that Osama bin Laden was “martyred”, Khan may have won the hearts of a section of his followers driven by an anti-Western temper – but at the cost of fighting the very terrorism he professes to deplore.

In ceding greater space to the clergy who proclaim that the coronavirus was a “curse of Allah”, members of ethnic minority groups in Pakistan are further marginalised and endangered. The killing of an American citizen in a courtroom while on trial for blasphemy in July is illustrative, according to human rights groups, of minority faiths being targeted in the majority Sunni Muslim country. With the coronavirus pandemic edging Pakistan’s economy precipitously close to collapse, the country’s poorest – most of whom come from minority groups – are faced with dire choices. Their exclusion can never make for a stable society. Nor can waging a brutal war against them.

The strategic port city of Gwadar, described as the “crown jewel” of the “game-changing” China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and located in Balochistan province – land of the Baloch people – has been the target of increased armed attacks by ethnic separatist groups despite a heavy military presence.