Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan of launching an 'undeclared war' on them.
In a hard hitting attack on Pakistan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani today accused it of launching an "undeclared war" on his country by covertly supporting several terror networks, including the Taliban.
In his address at the 6th annual conference of Heart of Asia, Mr Ghani said, "We thank Pakistan for their pledges of $500 million for the reconstruction of Afghanistan... This fund, Mr Aziz, could very well be used to contain extremists because without peace, any amount of assistance will not meet the needs of our people".
Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz was among representatives of 30 countries who attended the conference inaugurated jointly by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr Ghani.
Asserting that "no amount of money can assist us if there is support to terrorists by Pakistan," Mr Ghani said military operations in Pakistan have brought about selective displacement of terrorists.
He said time has come for concrete action against terror infrastructure and those support it. In this context, he quoted a top Taliban terrorist who said unless terror sanctuaries were allowed in Pakistan, the group will not last even a month.
Despite Afghanistan's bilateral and multilateral ties with Pakistan, the "undeclared war" that started in winter of 2014, has intensified after the recent Brussels conference on Afghanistan's transition, Mr Ghani said. Severely criticising Islamabad, he said an Asian or international mechanism must be put in place without "playing games", to find out who was benefiting from terror, extremism and other illicit activities.
Slamming Pakistan's habit of denying cross border terror attacks, the Afghan President also called for an international mechanism to verify the reality of such attacks, which have increased in the last few months.
"There should be an Asian or international regime, whatever is acceptable to Pakistan, should be put in place to verify frontier activities and terrorist operations... We do not want blame game, we want verification," he said.
Hailing India's role in Afghanistan's transition, Mr Ghani said "India's assistance is transparent and with no strings attached... There are no hidden deals between India and Afghanistan".