Within a few hours, the Taliban’s stand on the Kashmir issue changed to something else. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen claimed that the group has a right to speak about the rights of Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir. However, a day earlier, Anas Haqqani had claimed that the Taliban would not back down from the Kashmir issue. However, India is yet to comment on the matter.
Suhail was quoted in a BBC Urdu report on Thursday as saying that the Taliban had no policy of taking up arms against any country. Suhail had raised the issue of the terms of the agreement signed between the US and the Taliban in February last year. Suhail, however, said he would raise his voice for Muslims in Kashmir, India or any other country. A Taliban spokesman was quoted in BBC Urdu as saying, “We will raise our voice and say that Muslims are your people, your own citizens. They are also entitled to equal rights under the law.”
Haqqani’s voice was heard in a completely different tone from that of a Taliban spokesman. Haqqani, one of the members of the Taliban’s 14-member mediation team, told News18 that the Kashmir issue was not an issue in Afghanistan. We have a clear policy, which is not in our country (we will not smell there). We cannot interfere in other countries. The fact that Haqqani network is helping Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist groups in Pakistan is not ‘true’ at all. Anas Haqqani claimed that the whole thing was ‘propaganda’. He claims that India has supported an “anti-Taliban” government for the past 20 years. However, the Taliban does not want to see past history.
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