Days after Afghan National Security Advisor Hamidullah Mohib lashed out at Pakistan, the latter has conveyed to the Afghan government that they would no longer engage with Mohib, citing what they call his “abusive outburst”, reports say. 

The controversy erupted earlier this week days after Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javad Bajwa wrapped up his Afghan visit, Mohib, in a speech in Nangarhar province, criticized Pakistan and its spy agency for supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. He even called Pakistan a “brothel house”. 

A report in Voice of America, citing a top Pakistani official, said that Pakistan would not engage bilaterally with the Afghan NSA, and registered a strong protest and objection over what they call Mahib’s “undignified language”.  

Afghan NSA Mohib and Amruallah Saleh, the former spy chief and currently first vice president of Afghanistan, are among the most outspoken critics of Pakistan. However, Saleh started using more subtle language in his criticism lately. 

Significantly, soon after the controversial remark by Mohib, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi asked the Afghan president to make up his mind if he wanted to seek cooperation from Pakistan. He even accused the Afghan government of not being sincere in the peace process. 

Traditionally, after 2001, Pakistan has had a history of having tense terms with almost all security and intelligence chiefs of Afghanistan. In 2010, Amrullah Saleh, then chief of the National Directorate of Services, equivalent to Afghan intel agency, had to resign, after then-president Hamid Karzai sought rapprochement with Pakistan. 

Rahmatullah Nabil, who was Afghan intelligence chief between 2010-2015,  too, met the same fate. 

 Interestingly, in 2018, the US administration, under the former president Donald Trump, had also cut off its contacts with NSA Mohib after he criticized the Americans’ approach towards the Taliban that bypassed the Afghan government. 

(SAM)