Islamabad – The Foreign Office (FO) of Pakistan on Friday issued a sharp rebuttal to former United States envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, underscoring what it described as his persistent hostility toward Pakistan.
At the weekly media briefing, FO Spokesperson Ambassador Shafqat Ali Khan was asked about Khalilzad’s remarks linking Pakistan’s leadership and Afghanistan to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
“We don’t comment on every individual’s opinion. Media is full of various assessments and statements. Khalilzad’s proclivity against Pakistan is well known; this hostility is one of the constants, and I think the only time he is not thinking of Pakistan is when he is sleeping,” Khan said.
On September 15, Khalilzad, who served as US special envoy for Afghan reconciliation under both the Trump and Biden administrations, posted on X after a Kabul visit linked to prisoner exchanges. He urged Pakistan to abandon its military approach toward the TTP and instead adopt a political strategy involving negotiations.
“The Pakistani establishment always advised the US and Afghan government before 2021 to negotiate and seek a political settlement with the Afghan Taliban. The time has come for Pakistan to consider doing the same,” he wrote.
Strategic Context
Officials in Islamabad emphasized that Pakistan pursues a comprehensive counterterrorism framework combining political, security, and developmental measures. They stressed that unlike Afghanistan’s political conflict, the TTP is an outlawed militant group waging terrorist attacks against civilians, security forces, and infrastructure, leaving no grounds for comparison with the Afghan peace process.
Analysts dismissed Khalilzad’s assertions as outdated and detached from Pakistan’s security realities. They noted his prisoner-exchange diplomacy in Kabul lacked substance, while his latest remarks appeared to echo jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s opposition to counterterrorism operations and Afghan refugee repatriation.
For Islamabad, the message remains clear. Pakistan sees no equivalence between reconciling with an insurgent political movement, as in Afghanistan, and negotiating with a militant group that continues to shed Pakistani blood.
The FO’s rebuttal on Friday underlined Pakistan’s resolve to confront terrorism on its own terms, and its unwillingness to take lectures from a former envoy whose relevance, in the eyes of many officials here, has long since faded.
