Gen Bajwa urges Afghan refugees' repatriation for terror eradication
- By Web Desk -
- Feb 17, 2018
MUNICH: Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Saturday called upon the international fraternity to unite against the menace of terrorism, ARY News reported.
In his speech during the Munich Security Conference, army chief said that the world needs to realise that trust, cooperation and trust among states is the key to fighting global terrorism as terrorists thrive on “our division and feed upon our inability to come together against them”.
“Trust co-operation and sharing will work and scapegoating won’t. Terrorists thrive on “our division and feed upon our inability to come together against them, it (terrorism) is a global problem and requires a global approach,” said General Bajwa.
He said Pakistan has been hosting three million Afghan refugees and now, time has come to repatriate these refugees to their own country.
General Bajwa called upon the world to counter terrorists’ narrative with an equally powerful narrative in order to beat terrorists on all levels.
He reiterated that repatriation of Afghan refugees is the only way to resolve the issue of terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan as militants use refugee camps to misguide and recruit youth in their ranks.
“Secondly, our border with Afghanistan is very porous. We have unilaterally taken many steps to improve border management, we had increased surveillance and and have now started fencing 2300 kilometers of the border. We are putting scanners and biometrics at the border terminals to ensure that while common Afghans are facilitated, miscreants and terrorists are prevented or arrested,” said the COAS.
He added that Pakistan is fully committed to the international consensus that political reconciliation is the only solution to the Afghan conflict.
The army chief maintained that “despite the seeming frustration” Pakistan has achieved more than other countries in war on terror as the country’s forces decimated Al-Qaeda and other terror outfits from the region.
He concluded his speech by saying that though war against terrorism would take sometime to finish but world should stand united against terrorism in order to beat them.