The Afghan president spoke about the 'unintended consequences' of Pakistan's military operations. ─ DawnNews screengrab President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani opened his speech by expressing gratitude to Pakistan for "hosting millions of Afghan refugees over decades".
But his speech quickly turned to the perils and origins of the refugee problem and he talked about the ‘unintended consequences’ of Pakistan’s military operations.
"Unfortunately, recent events in Pakistan have forced us to host close to 350,000 to 500,000 Pakistani refugees on our soil. The refugee issue is a common issue, like other issues that confront us," Ghani said.
He lauded Pakistan's decision to launch operations against militancy, but said the action had "created unintended consequences bringing about the displacement of a significant number of these [militant] groups onto our soil".
The Taliban which began as an Afghan phenomena have become a regional phenomena, the Afghan president said.
"The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan launched a vicious attack on children in Peshawar for which Pakistan robustly responded. But that very response brought them onto our country. Until now we have launched 40 operations through our Special Forces against them.
"What is the nature of the Taliban and how do we deal with it?" he questioned. "There is no historical precedent for solving this problem," he said, referring to the challenges posed by terrorism.
"What is driving the conflict?" the Afghan president asked. "Is it insurgency or are we dealing with a much larger conflict?"
"The first driver of conflict is regional and international terror groups... Al Qaeda, Daesh and terrorists from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Middle East are all, unfortunately, present on our soil."
"The quarrel of these people [militants] is not with the government of Afghanistan or its people. We are fighting on behalf of all of you," Ghani told the conference, "But we are the ones who are daily suffering some of the worst atrocities, including the butchering of our children and elderly who are totally innocent."
'We are the ones who are daily suffering some of the worst atrocities, including the butchering of our children and elderly.' Referring to recent terror incidents in Istanbul, Paris, Sharm-el-Shaikh and San Bernardino, he said, "We do have a problem. It is a global and regional problem. It requires us to focus on it systematically and coherently."
Ghani called for a mechanism of regional cooperation to examine "how the networks of terror coordinate, co-finance, what is their linkage with the criminal economy, how is radicalism shaping and maligning our holy religion and our opportunities for global engagement and dialogue".
The Afghan president stressed the need to recognise that terrorism, "while morally an aberration, has become a sociological system. It has a distinctive ecology of competition and cooperation. It has a morphology, it is changing its form very rapidly ─ If Al Qaeda is version one, Daesh is version six ─ and the worst feature of it is its pathology."
'If Al Qaeda is version one, Daesh is version six.' He said terror groups now used violence to "overawe in order to make the news, in order to put fear into the hearts of people", and used violence for the sake of violence.
While non-state actors have been used in the past, he called for participants to "distance ourselves from non-state actors because the word of states is the word of predictability".
State-to-state, political-to-political, military-to-military, economic-to-economic and intelligence-to-intelligence cooperation are central to the Pak-Afghan relationship, he said.
"We need to create a framework for comprehensive cooperation so that, in light of drivers of conflict, we can fashion solutions that are going to be lasting. Peace is not equivalent to reconciliation. It requires dealing with all the drivers of conflict so that a multidimensional peace, that truly will ensure that all of us live in harmony and can count on each other for enforcing an agreed set of rules of the game, is essential."
"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and I both do not believe in blame games. We would like to suggest mechanisms of verification as to what type of actors threaten our common interests because with a proper regime of verification, we can fashion the instruments of cooperation."
"Without rules of the game where states respect the rights and obligations of mutual sovereignty and cooperate in the states' relationship we will have enormous difficulty containing terrorists."
He appealed to Afghanistan's neighbours, near and far, to help contain terrorists.
He said there had been "considerable uncertainty whether Pakistan would truly acknowledge a sovereign Afghan state with its legitimate government and constitution".
Addressing PM Nawaz, he said, "Your words today have gone a very long way to assure us in this regard and that opens up the possibility for sustained dialogue among us."
He called for a meeting regarding regional cooperation in line with what Nawaz earlier suggested in order to give it "concrete shape and movement forward".
The dignified return of refugees, he said, is absolutely central to regional cooperation and that it requires coordination in terms of "elimination of the threats that currently haunt us... We could generate double-digit growth and poverty elimination" if this happens, he said.
Recalling a speech in Beijing last year, Ghani said: "I spoke of four transitions: The political transition, the security transition, the economic transition and, most significantly, the transition to turn the culture of the state to being citizen focused."