Half of population in Afghanistan faces hunger, food shortages: PM

Half of population in Afghanistan faces hunger, food shortages: PM

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Prime Minister Imran Khan Sunday said half of the population in Afghanistan was in a very precarious situation because of hunger, malnutrition, and food shortages.

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s GPS host Fareed Zakaria, he said the present situation was already developing into one of the worst humanitarian crises in Afghanistan.

He said, “people in the United States must understand one thing that it is a question of almost 40 million Afghans and half of them are in a very precarious situation.”

“There is hunger and the Afghan winter is extremely wicked, ruthless,” he said adding people in Afghanistan were facing winter and there were food shortages and malnutrition.

TALIBAN AND SANCTIONS ON AFGHANISTAN

To a question, the prime minister said there was no alternative to Taliban right now in Afghanistan.

“Is there a chance that if the Taliban government is squeezed there could be a change for the better? No. So the only alternative we have right now is to work with them and incentivize them for what the world wants – inclusive government, human rights and women rights in particular. That is the only way forward right now.”

“And the flip side is that if they (Taliban) are abandoned and if these sanctions stay there and the banking system has no liquidity left because of the sanctions, then the worry is that Afghanistan can go into chaos and a humanitarian crisis will occur.”

“From Pakistan’s point of view, we faced two problems. We already have three million Afghan refugees. There were three terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan into Pakistan,” he noted.

He said as the Taliban government was formed, the flood of refugees came and almost 250,000 Afghans crossed into Pakistan and amongst them unfortunately were terrorists.

“There were these Pakistani Taliban which had conducted attacks inside Pakistan, there were the Baloch insurgents who were conducting attacks especially recently and then there was ISIL.”

“So our best hope is that a stable Afghanistan will ensure peace and stability of Pakistan,” he said adding so therefore it was in everyone’s interest that the situation in Afghanistan should not descend into chaos.

He said sooner or later Taliban would have to be recognized.

“So now the world wants some guarantees before they recognize the Taliban. So how far the US is going to push the Taliban to actually conform them to what they expect them to do in terms of human rights.”

Taliban was a very strong ideological movement. They represented culture which was completely alien to the western societies, he commented adding, “So therefore somewhere there has to be give and take. But by not recognizing them and freezing their accounts and the banking system, only people are going to suffer, and not the Taliban government because no one can replace them right now. So what is happening is that half of the Afghan population, about 20 million people are at a severe risk.”

LOSSES OF PAKISTAN AND U.S WAR ON TERROR

To another question, he said the US war on terror actually bred terrorists.

“I can tell you from the Pakistan’s example because we had 80,000 people dying after joining the US war on terror.”

“We saw that as the war went on it produced more terrorists and I am convinced it was exactly the same to what happened in Afghanistan due to the night raids in Afghanistan, the drone attacks.”

He asked the United States to review the policy of drone attacks.

“We watched what happened there. They were telling people in the United States that the drones were very accurate and they actually got the terrorists. Bombs exploding in villages, how they would only get the terrorists. So there was a lot of collateral damage and I am afraid the public in the United States does not really know the amount of collateral damage.

We bore the brunt because what happened was, we were considered the collaborators of the U.S so all the revenge attacks were against the Pakistani soldiers and against the people of Pakistan. There were suicide attacks occurring all over the country and we lost 80,000 people.”