In a statement, a Taliban spokesman said the group reserves the right to speak out on behalf of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, comments that run counter to Anas Haqqani’s assertion that the group will not interfere in Kashmir. In an article published online on Thursday, BBC Urdu quoted Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen as saying that the group does not take up arms against any country. The Taliban and the US signed an agreement in February 2020, which he referred to in this context.
The Taliban, as Muslims are entitled, however are to raise their voices for Muslim rights in Kashmir, India, or anywhere else. ‘We will raise our voice and declare that Muslims are your own people, your own citizens. It is the law of your country that they should have equal rights,’ he said. Shaheen’s remarks completely contradict those made by Haqqani Network leader Anas Haqqani, a member of the Taliban’s 14-member negotiating team, in an interview aired by the News18 channel on Wednesday.
According to Haqqani, Afghanistan has no issues with Kashmir. In Urdu, he had said, ‘When something is not an issue for our country, we cannot interfere in another country’. Furthermore, he described reports that the Haqqani Network supports Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which are active in Kashmir, as ‘propaganda’. Indian officials did not immediately respond to Shaheen’s remarks. Haqqani has been engaging in outreach to India, as has his senior Taliban leader Sher Mohammed Abbas Stanekzai, who is expected to be given a top position in the government to be formed by the Taliban. Haqqani said in the interview that the Taliban does not want to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries. ‘We want to avoid negatively interfering with internal problems. We want good relations with all countries for political relations and humanitarian aid,’ he said.
According to him, India has supported the Taliban’s opponents in Afghanistan for 20 years. In response, Shaheen stated on condition of anonymity that the narrative presented by Taliban leaders such as Anas Haqqani had to be understood within the context of the Taliban’s longstanding relationship with Pakistan, and the channels of communication between India and the Taliban. There is a constituency in Pakistan that the Taliban must satisfy, one of the cited individuals said.
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Deepak Mittal, India’s ambassador to Qatar, met Stanekzai, the head of the Taliban’s political office, at the Indian embassy in Doha on Tuesday after the Taliban requested it. Shaheen said “propaganda” against the Haqqani Network is nothing more than an opinion piece. According to him, the Haqqanis do not form groups. As part of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, they also hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814 en route to Kandahar in 1999.
The Taliban were in power in Kabul at the time and Indian officials have long contended that the Taliban assisted Pakistani terrorists who hijacked the airliner to force India to release three terrorists, including Masood Azhar, who later founded JeM. The Taliban isn’t responsible for the hijacking, Shaheen says, and the Indian government should be ‘grateful’ for the help they provided in Kandahar. According to him, the Indian side told the Taliban that the airliner was running low on fuel, and that the group assisted in the release of the passengers.
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