ISLAMABAD/LAHORE   -  Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned against sanctioning the new Afghan setup saying it will only lead to chaos and a huge humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

In an interview with Middle East Eye, the prime minister urged the world community to rather engage with Afghanistan to prevent the ascendancy of hardline elements within the Taliban’s own ranks. He said unless America takes the lead, we are worried that there will be chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be most affected by it.

The Prime Minister said he is working with neighboring states, notably Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which have sizeable ethnic minorities inside Afghanistan, to encourage the Taliban to widen representation in government. He said Afghanistan needs an inclusive government because it is a diverse society.

The Prime Minister condemned the continued use of drones by the US in Afghanistan saying it is the most insane way of fighting terrorism.

Asked whether Pakistan would allow the US to launch strikes targeting ISIS in Afghanistan from Pakistan, Imran Khan once again made it clear that Pakistan does not need to be part of a conflict again. He said Pakistan has paid a heavy price both human and material in the war on terrorism.

Responding to a question, Imran Khan said the TTP consisted of fifty groups and that he was trying to reconcile those elements who are willing to talk.

“Now we are trying to talk to those who can be reconciled because it’s from a position of strength. I always believed all insurgencies eventually end up on the dialogue table, like the IRA [Irish Republican Army] for instance,” he said, referring to the Northern Irish peace deal.

The United States has to “pull itself together” and deliver an aid package to Afghanistan or face the collapse of a country which would become a haven for Islamic State militants, Imran Khan told Middle East Eye. He said it was vital to Pakistan that Washington steps up to the challenge because his country, where tens of thousands of people have died in conflict linked to the US-led “war on terror”, would once more pay a heavy price. “It’s a really critical time and the US has to pull itself together because people in the United States are in a state of shock,” he told MEE in the interview in Islamabad.

“They were imagining some sort of democracy, nation-building or liberated women, and suddenly they find the Taliban are back. There is so much anger and shock and surprise. Unless America takes the lead, we are worried that there will be chaos in Afghanistan and we will be most affected by that.”

Khan said: “The world must engage with Afghanistan because if it pushes it away, within the Taliban movement there are hardliners, and it could easily go back to the Taliban of 2000 and that would be a disaster.” 

Khan said India had also drawn on Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories and the impunity the country has enjoyed as a consequence of its alliance with the US, in its own quashing of opposition and criticism of its actions in Kashmir. 

“[Israel has] built such a strong security apparatus and [they] just crush anything. They send people who kill and assassinate and they have total immunity,” he said. “Whatever the UN general assembly says, they have complete confidence in the veto the US has in the Security Council. So they get away with anything. And I feel that India feels [it has immunity] because they are being used… as a bulwark against China.”

When asked about relations with China, Imran Khan said this relationship is seventy years old and it has stood the test of time. He said China always stood with us in all our ups and downs.

Asked by MEE how volatile the current situation was, Khan replied: “If you look at the flashpoints, probably the nuclear flashpoint right now in the world is Pakistan-India because nowhere else is there a situation where there are two nuclear-armed countries who have had three wars before they were nuclear-armed.”

He added: “We have not had a war since then because of the deterrent.”

“No country paid such a heavy price as us. Eighty thousand Pakistanis died. The economy was devastated. $150bn was lost to the economy. It was called the most dangerous place on earth. Three-and-a-half million people were internally displaced.” Khan said it was too early to say what the regional effect of the US withdrawal would be. 

But he said China was the emerging power that would step into the vacuum and had stood by Pakistan – a key recipient of Chinese investment as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road project – during its darkest recent days. “Who was the country that came to help? We were going belly up. It was China that helped us. You always remember those who help you in the difficult times.”