There are no good or bad terrorists and the international community should work together to remove terror infrastructure, said Dr. Arian Sharifi, Director of National Threat Assessment, National Security Council of Afghanistan. India too has been advocating a similar approach on terrorism while the international community tried to bring the “good Taliban” to talks.
“Stop making a distinction between good terrorists and bad terrorists… We will never negotiate with any foreign terrorists. We will talk with Äfghan Taliban as they are our citizens,” said Dr. Sharifi He was speaking at a conference on ‘Tackling insurgent ideologies’ organised by the Observer Research Foundation and Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
Dr. Sharifi said there were about 20 terror groups operating in Afghanistan of which only the Afghan Taliban was a local one.
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Last Thursday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced an unconditional ceasefire, for the first time, with the Taliban coinciding with the holy month of Ramzan till June 20. In response, the Afghan Taliban announced a three-day ceasefire.
Kabul had been consistently maintaining that Pakistan was harbouring terror safe havens on its side of the border and it had been a major issue of confrontation between the two countries.
In January this year India told the Unites Nations Security Council (UNSC) that Pakistan should change its “mindset” on terrorism while reiterating commitment for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan. The U.S. too had told the UNSC that terrorist safe havens in Pakistan were not acceptable.
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