NEW DELHI: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that if Pakistan becomes the first country to recognise the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, the international community's pressure on Islamabad would be "too much" to bear, Geo News reported.
"If Pakistan was the first to grant recognition of Taliban, the international pressure would become too much for us as we try to turn our economy around," he said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro.
"To be isolated by becoming the only state (to recognise the Taliban regime) would be the last thing we would want," the Prime Minister said, noting that Pakistan wanted the recognition of the Taliban government as a "collective process", the report said.
He said Afghans were proud people who could not be forced to act in a certain way.
"You cannot force them. There is a limit to what foreign pressure can do to a government like the Taliban [...] Afghans should not be expected to respect women's rights as Westerners understand them," he said.
However, the premier said the Taliban had agreed on girls education but needed time.
The Pak premier expressed concern over the worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the possible reflux of refugees, and the US administration's decision to free only half of the Afghan funds on the United States soil.
He mentioned that before the fall of the former regime, three organisations were operating from Afghanistan — the Pakistani Taliban, the Baloch terrorists, and a group of Daesh.
"We believe that the more stable the Afghan government is, the less these groups can operate. That is why we are so c oncerned about the stability of Afghanistan," he said, as per the report. (IANS)
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