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Pakistan Warns Against Secluding Taliban Over Buddhas
TOKYO, March 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Japan and other industrial nations should not set against Afghanistan's Taliban regime for the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said Thursday.
"We are afraid what the Taliban government has done will antagonize the international community," said Sattar, showing regret that Islamabad was unable to convince the Taliban not to destroy the two 1,500 year-old giant Buddhas.
If the international community already secludes Afghanistan, "then the hardships of Afghan people will increase," said Abdul Sattar, who arrived Wednesday in Tokyo on a four-day visit to discuss a renewal of Japanese financial aid to Islamabad.
He said he feared countries would give up their support for Afghan refugees after the destruction condemned by the international community, reported Dawn, a Pakistani daily.
"I think the international community needs to reflect what is the likely, successful strategy to persuade the government to international opinions," he said.
"If influential countries of the world had engaged the government of Afghanistan ... all of us together, we could have had success in preventing the demolition of this great heritage," he said.
The Bamiyan Buddhas, one of which at 55 meters (180 feet) was the tallest standing Buddha in the world, dated from between the second and fifth centuries. The destruction of the statues was ordered by Supreme Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to prevent a return to "idolatry."
Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider failed to persuade Taliban officials to forsake the decision following high-level talks over the weekend, reported AFP.
Pakistan is Taliban's closest ally and one of only three countries that recognize the regime, after Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
"Afghanistan is our neighbor," Abdul Sattar said. "We have historical, deep cultural and ethnic relations with Afghans."
"We made our best efforts to persuade the Taliban not to demolish the world's great heritage," Abdul Sattar said.
Abdul Sattar said that Taliban could have been stopped from destroying the statues had the international community made sincere efforts, and the had United Nations and OIC contacted the Taliban's scholars' committee, reported Pakistan News Service.
The Taliban resumed the destruction process despite the efforts of Islamic clerics that visited Afghanistan to clarify the Islamic viewpoint concerning the destruction of the statues.
They were part of a delegation of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) led by Qatar's foreign minister and included Egypt's top religious leader and two leading Sunni clerics, the same branch of Islam as the Taliban.
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