These days, regional countries – even Taliban supporters – are concerned about the situation in Afghanistan.
Shahbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, expressed concern at the UN General Assembly about the threat of terrorist groups that are recruiting and preparing in Afghanistan. Yesterday, Imam Ali Rahman, the president of Tajikistan, said that tens of thousands of terrorists and suicide bombers are being trained in Afghanistan. The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization also announced in yesterday’s meeting in India that they will jointly fight the terrorist threats arising from Afghanistan. In the past year, Russia, Uzbekistan, China and Kazakhstan have also expressed concern about the current situation in Afghanistan through various channels, including through the Shanghai Organization.
However, the regional countries only act in the same direction in expressing their concerns and are not coordinated in dealing with terrorism, but some of them cooperate with branches of the complex and intertwined terrorist network in the region. Due to regional conflicts and border disputes, they do not have a common definition of terrorism, so a group is a terrorist for one country, but a strategic capital for another country. Another group may be called a terrorist and separatist by a country, but its neighbor sees it as a liberating and fighting force. In yesterday’s meeting of the organization to combat terrorism and separatism of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is called “Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure”, Pakistan and India, along with other members of that organization, pledged to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and separatism. In a situation where both countries in Kashmir and Baluchistan are supporting militia and separatist forces against each other and Pakistan is known to have strong relations with the Afghan Taliban and a number of terrorist organizations in the region, such a commitment is meaningless.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has had security cooperation and the fight against separatism at the top of its programs since its inception, has not taken any significant measures to secure the region and fight against extremism and terrorism, except for some summits, publishing announcements and holding military exercises. Another international organization that has held meetings in this region for many years and considers promoting international peace as one of its goals is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. This organization, which basically has to do extensive theoretical, propaganda and political work to ensure peace in Islamic countries against the threats of terrorists and extremists, has been engaged in repeated and ineffective official speeches and meetings. The extraordinary meeting of this organization, which was held in Islamabad last year after the Taliban came to power, was a good example of its inability to take collective and organizational action. In that meeting, which was attended by the representatives of dozens of Islamic countries, no concrete decision or action was taken that would make the members of that organization responsible, but there, too, the eyes were fixed on the representatives of the western countries and aid organizations, and eventually the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths,, who asked the world and actually the western world to provide 4.5 billion dollars in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
The SAARC regional organization, which has been in existence for nearly four decades and calls the development of economic and political cooperation among South Asian countries as its mission, is also a passive and ineffective institution. This organization has not yet done a remarkable job in facilitating trade and investment and opening the borders, nor has it made a memorable initiative in resolving political differences between the member countries.
The current crisis in Afghanistan is not the only result of the internal situation of this country, but this crisis is the product of the prevailing conditions in the region. Terrorist organizations of Central Asia, China, Pakistan, the Middle East and North Africa, which have now spread to Afghanistan, are not the offspring of Afghanistan’s conflicts and backwardness, and the fight against those groups is a regional and international mission. Countries that are the origin or the goal of these organizations should not watch the collapse of our society and the gradual death of the Afghan people under the burden of the crisis that is rooted throughout the region. Expressing concern and half-hearted commitments do not work, and if collective action is not taken, this crisis will soon overflow the borders of Afghanistan.