(MENAFN- Pajhwok Afghan News) KABUL (Pajhwok): The national security advisor (NSA) has called for mutually reinforcing peace and counter-terrorism strategies and increased regional coordination for their success.
€œFirst this threat is to our national security interests, state security and economic interests of the countries of the region,€ Hanif Atmar told the Kabul Process Conference on Wednesday.
He said it was a threat to the entire region and by extension threat to the global community, emanating from a nexus of violent extremism by transnational terror networks, the economics of crime, transnational criminal networks and covert sponsorship.
Atmar made a case for making peace with the Taliban and Haqqani networks, while ruling out talks global terrorist groups, ranging from Al-Qaeda, Daesh to Laskar-i-Taiba, TTP, IMU and ATIM.
There were symbiotic relationships among the terrorist organisations, which needed each other for protection, sanctuary, training, financing and information, the advisor said.
Following is the text of Atmar€™s speech:
€œWe need to be aware of them because they will have implications for any peace and reconciliation strategy. Despite all of our sacrifices together, we see some growth in the numbers and capabilities of these terrorist networks.
€œHence, my second point, and that is related to dispelling common myths about the conflict in Afghanistan and our region. The first myth is that this conflict is seen as a civil war. This is not a civil war. Given the fact that you have regional and global state and non-state actors€™ involvement, that you see transnational criminal economic networks, it is hardly anymore a civil war.
€œSecond, it is often wrongly associated with Islam. This shouldn€™t be! Muslims constitute the largest victim of terrorism and Muslims are the strongest partners against terrorism across the globe.
€œThird, it is the wrong distinction that is being made between good, so called good and bad terrorists. This is of critical concern to and should be to all of us. Because of this wrong believe that you can work with good terroristsin order to fight the bad terrorists.
€œOur regional consensus was that there shouldn€™t be that kind of distinction and there should be only state to state cooperation against terrorism.
€œFinally, what we do here in Afghanistan is not just for the defense of Afghanistan, it is for the defense of region, given the intentions of these networks and by extension it is for the defense of the global community.
€œTogether with our international partners, we have made huge sacrifices. And let me take this opportunity to pay my respect and appreciation to all our international partners who have been our partners for counter terrorism and partners for stabilising the region.
€œThe need for mutually reinforcing strategies, we talked about peace but we are also talking about counter terrorism. Is there any contradiction in our thinking? What we are offering that there isn€™t any contradiction?
€œThese two strategies are reinforcing each other. First our peace strategy is not just for peace making but it is also to enhance global counter terrorism, because our peace strategy aims to separate Taliban and the Haqqanis from the foreign fighters. And if we achieve that, this would be a great contribution to regional and global counter terrorism.
€œThese foreign fighters will not have a local host. While the local host is invited for peace, but the foreign terrorist groups are not welcome to this country and they will have to be defeated.
€œOur counter terrorism strategy is in fact not just for counter terrorism; it is also to enhance our peace and reconciliations strategy, because the aim of strategy is to increase the number of reconcilable elements within Taliban and the Haqqani network. So, we urge you to look at these two strategies as mutually reinforcing.
€œMy final point ladies and gentlemen, is coordinated efforts against these common threats. Humbly put our government would like to purpose at least seven specific points for increased regional cooperation for counter terrorism and counter narcotics.
€œPoint one, we have already agreed on the need to hold a regional conference specifically on counter terrorism and counter narcotics. Our idea is that a common strategy needs to be agreeing them all which will hopefully lead to national action plans.
€œThe strategy and plans will have to be consistent with our international obligations both for counter terrorism and counter narcotics. In this we can certainly see technical systems from the United Nations and its competent agencies.
€œSecond proposal, with some of our Islamic partners we would like to have specific coordinated plans on a number of elements that could have an immediate impact on arresting the growth of terrorist networks. Chiefly we have been discussing this with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE and our other regional partners. The first area of cooperation is intelligence sharing. Second is cooperation on threat financing, defeating, and dismantling the financial infrastructure of terror. Third is the terrorist ideology campaign, we heard from our President this morning that one of the appeals is to all of you, from our Muslim partners, we need to mobilize the Muslim world Ulema against terrorism and its hate ideology.
€œThird proposal is our bilateral agreements with each one of you in the region, especially with our neighbors. We have already reached an agreement with Uzbekistan and Iran on security and counter narcotics.
€œWe would like to reach that agreement with every one of you bilaterally. This is to emphasize that in addition to our regional cooperation we need to frame our cooperation bilaterally as well.
€œNumber four is extradition; Mr. Stanekzai spoke about the foreign fighters that we have arrested. Already colleagues we have extradited 87 of them, to 5 of the countries that are present in this meeting today and we planned to repatriate another 73 of these foreign fighters to the countries of their origin.
€œAgain all of them present in this meeting. Why do we do that? The number one reason is we would like to address that chronic suspicion and the poor understanding as to where these foreign terrorist come from? Where they get trained and financed? And what intentions they peruse?
€œThat is a wealth of evidence that we accessed to; we would like to make that available to all of you. You can interview these people and you can find out for yourself as to what kind of terrorist infrastructure, support infrastructure that they draw on.
€œWe would like to reach bilateral agreement for extradition, for both prosecution and reintegration and fortunately some of them come with their families, with their kids. One sad story is that terrorists leaders are often frost to have their families, so that can provide a guarantee for what they are supposed to be doing.
€œNumber five, ladies and gentlemen! An honest proposal, let€™s have a joint review of the existence of the foreign fighters in Afghanistan and in the region. We often hear about ideas that these foreign fighters are moved from one region to another region. But the evidence that we have does not support those claims.
€œWhat we are offering to you is that given the detainees that we have and the patterns that already stablished and an enormous amount of intelligence available, we will provide you with access to that. Let€™s want together, have a joint assessment of who they are, where they are supported, what kind of infrastructure is available to them and what can we do together to defeat them.
€œLet me honestly stress one point, this is not yet another chapter for blame game. This is not what we are trying to achieve. What we are trying to achieve is a common understanding with every one of you that this is a common threat and Afghanistan is your partner in defeating this threat.
€œNumber six is threat financing, yes we have all committed ourselves to this as part of the UN global counter terrorism strategy. Unfortunately that has not in translated yet into concrete action, because a key reason why there is growth in the capabilities of the number of these terrorist networks is availability of financing.
€œWe need to stop that. And our offer is again we have evidence, we want to make it available for a joint regional assessment and a joint regional action plan.
€œFinally is our ulema campaign proposal, we are already grateful to Saudi Arabia and our other key partners for holding a series of critical initiatives to address the hate ideology. We urge you to make that even more specific and turn it into a process rather than a one of action. The terrorists have Madrassas and schools to indoctrinate our children.
€œWe need to counter that through a processed based public education system. Those who have a place to do this are our religious schools. But they cannot do without state support. Hence, our appeal to all our regional partners here that the time has come to reinvest in education of our children and youth and raw our through Islamic values.
€œWith this, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to conclude by saying that this without doubt that we are face with common threat to our national security and this threat is growing and in fact we are in need of learning lessons from this, clear-eyed assessment is that the threat can only be defeated through a coordinated regional action.€
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