Afghan Defence Minister Says Taliban Does Not View TTP as Terrorists, Urges Pakistan to Seek Dialogue
Mullah Yaqub Mujahid rejects Islamabad’s claims of Afghan support for TTP and BLA, warns against military action, and hopes upcoming Türkiye talks will ease cross-border tensions.
Afghan Defence Minister Mullah Yaqub Mujahid, has said that Kabul does not share Pakistan's position on its militant-separatist factions like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), stating that the Afghan Taliban does not consider them terrorist.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Sunday, Mujahid said Pakistan and other countries use the label of "terrorism" for political purposes against their opponents.
"There is no universal or clear definition of terrorism," he said, adding that any government can brand its adversaries as terrorists for their own agendas.
His remarks came in response to the statement made by a Pakistani military spokesperson, who said on Oct 10 that the TTP launched its attacks from Afghan soil, posing a serious threat to Pakistan's national security and warned that Islamabad would not remain passive in response.
Mujahid urged Pakistan to resolve its differences with the separatist faction through dialogue, stating that the Taliban will not allow any armed groups to use Afghan territory to launch attacks against Pakistan, and denied all claims of Kabul supporting any of Pakistan-based militias such as the TTP, or the Balochistan separatist rebel group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).
Ideologically aligned with their Afghan counterparts, the Pakistani Taliban have declared jihad against Pakistan's military-controlled government and seek to establish an Islamic hardline theocratic state.
The TTP has stepped up deadly attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent months, with Islamabad increasingly struggling to contain the surge in cross-border assaults and repeatedly called on Kabul to restrain the entity, warning of full-scale military response against the TTP inside Afghan territory if it does not.
Mujahid warned of reciprocal response towards any attack on Afghanistan by Pakistan or any other nation, and expressed hope that the upcoming talks in Türkiye after the ones in Doha - focused on establishing mechanisms for cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul, - would help ease tensions between the two sides.