Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday stressed that the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is Pakistan’s “red-line,” adding that there will be zero tolerance for anyone seeking to support the militant group.
“As far as the TTP is concerned, it’s absolutely our red line. It is something that we will not tolerate,” he said during a discussion at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “And absolutely we will be willing to consider each and every single option to ensure the safety and security of our people,” he said, warning at a later event at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington that Islamabad would respond if it discovered that the Afghan Taliban were facilitating the militant group.
Making it clear that Pakistan could employ a “hammer and anvil” strategy—with the cooperation of Kabul—to eliminate militancy along its shared border with Afghanistan, Bhutto-Zardari maintained that the situation was far more secure and stable now than 2007, when Pakistan had initiated a series of military operations to counter the rise of the TTP. “But those things can be put at risk if this goes unchecked,” he said of a recent surge in cross-border attacks. “And obviously that would undermine any hope, whether it is CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] or any other form of economic activity. Nobody wants to put lives at risk in order to conduct business,” he said.
“That’s why I have been particularly hawkish on the issue of the TTP, and on the issue of terrorism in general. I believe that recent events in the region are alarming, not only the border incidents but the recent Bannu incident, which our security commanders have very bravely managed to overcome,” he said. However, he stressed, all of Pakistan’s neighbors—“particularly Afghanistan”—needed to be aware that the country had the will and capacity to take on any insurgents funded from abroad.
During his conversation at the Atlantic Council, the foreign minister admitted there was room to improve the Afghan policy of both Pakistan and the U.S., but reiterated that people needed to learn from past mistakes to ensure the safety and stability of Afghanistan, which would also boost stability in Pakistan and all of South Asia.
At the Pakistan Embassy, he told journalists that there was no new agreement on cooperation with the U.S. for anti-terrorism. “We urge [the U.S.] to release frozen funds for the Afghan people not for the Taliban,” he said. “They [Taliban] promised the U.S. and the world to take action against extremist groups,” he added.