KABUL - A number of Wolesi Jirga or lower house members on Saturday said the US was responsible for the defense of Afghanistan’s sovereignty under the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), urging the world to blacklist the states involved in supporting terrorism.
The BSA between Afghanistan and the US was signed in 2015.
A part of the article two of the agreement says, “The Parties acknowledge that U.S. military operations to defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates may be appropriate in the common fight against terrorism. The Parties agree to continue their close cooperation and coordination toward those ends, with the intention of protecting U.S. and Afghan national interests without unilateral U.S. military counter-terrorism operations.”
Both parties would regularly consult about taking political, diplomatic, military and economic measures for a response to such threats or assaults, the article adds.
Pakistan occasionally shelled rockets into the eastern border areas of the country and the Afghan government has repeatedly accused the neighbor country of providing safe havens to terrorist groups.
Obaidullah Barakzai, a lawmaker from Uruzgan province, said, “We have the BSA agreement with the US so why Pakistan interferes and send terrorists to Afghanistan, the US government is responsible to defend our national sovereignty and do not allow our neighbor countries to interfere in Afghanistan affairs,”
“The BSA did not heal our pains, but it caused further insecurity in our country, the problems would not be solved by complaining from the government, the US should be pressed because it is a friend of Pakistan, it helped Pakistan more than Afghanistan in the past years,” he said.
He asked the administrative board of the house to include the BSA as a reviewing subject in the house’s agenda.
First deputy speaker, Hamayon Hamayon, talking about the BSA, said, “The Afghan people did not get any benefits from this security agreement, our security situation is worsening, I ask all colleagues to study the BSA and find out who is blame for the failure,”
He said if the agreement was continued to be fruitless for Afghanistan in fight against terrorism than it should be a subject to think about it.
Pointing to Pakistan’s support to terrorism, he said, “We ask all the countries who fight terrorism to add those states that support terrorist organizations to the blacklist,”
He also asked the United Nations (UN) to press states that sponsored terrorism and let the world be free of their evil activities.  (Pajhwok)