Rabbani calls for pressure on Pakistan

Pakistan and “a coalition of terrorists and fanatics” who supported the Taliban movement were causing the Afghan people continued suffering through “an imposed war”, Afghanistan’s ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani said on Thursday. “The UN should bring pressure on Pakistan, and the Security Council should consider imposing sanctions on those who were “sponsoring terrorism in Afghanistan”, he told reporters at the UN in New York. The Taliban was at the very epicentre of instability in central Asia, the threat was grave and the international community must join hands to remove the problem of terrorist-producing training camps - and not only those of the Saudi Arabian fugitive Osama bin Laden, Rabbani said. The groups fighting his (ousted) government were using Islam as a pretext for “terrorism, human rights violations and other acts which were, in fact, far removed from the tenets of Islam,” he said. Rabbani said the protection of human rights was an essential part of the UN’s mandate, and it and the international community “should pay closer attention to the plight of women suffering under the Taliban.” The world had forgotten Afghanistan’s “humanitarian catastrophe”, but he hoped it would awaken to address Afghanistan with the same seriousness that had been evinced in dealing with Kosovo and East Timor, Rabbani added. [for full statement, go to: http://www.reliefweb.int/w/]