ON MARCH 2, Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah defended Special Envoy to the Middle East Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang’s visit to Qatar to meet several Taliban leaders.
In his remark, Saifuddin said that Hadi’s meeting with Afghanistan’s United Nations ambassador Suhail Shaheen did not mean Malaysia recognises that country’s new government.
News portal, Free Malaysia Today reported Saifuddin as saying: “Hadi’s working visit was aimed at strengthening Malaysia’s role in arriving at the best solutions to the issues faced by Afghanistan, particularly its deteriorating humanitarian and economic situation.
“Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob) consented to Hadi’s working visit from Jan 31 to Feb 4.
“As the PM’s special envoy to the Middle East, Hadi’s role, apart from ensuring that Malaysia’s strategic interests in the region continue to be preserved, is also to strengthen our relations with other countries, including Afghanistan,” he mentioned in a written reply to the Parliament.
While Saifuddin’s reply may seem quite standard and answered the concerns of some quarters given that major powers have yet to recognise Afghanistan’s Taliban government, one needs to ponder on a few things.
First up, Afghanistan is NOT a Middle Eastern country! It is actually a country located in South Asia, along with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The writer believes this is a confusion many people have. Just because Afghanistan is an Islam-based theocracy, many assume it is actually located in the Middle East which is incorrect.
Officially speaking, if Malaysia wants to reach out the Afghan government to provide humanitarian aid, we should have dispatched our Special Envoy to South Asia Tan Sri SA Vigneswaran instead.
Bear in mind that PM Ismail Sabri appointed the MIC president to the job on Nov 14, last year!
So did Malaysia just commit a diplomatic blunder here or it is just that geography is not really Saifuddin and Hadi’s area of expertise?
Tread carefully in Afghanistan
In any case, the writer would urge the Government to deal with Afghanistan with both eyes wide open and not get blind-sided over other interests.
Yes, we should reach out to Afghanistan in terms of providing the best we can given that the people there are going through probably one of the worst humanitarian crisis following the departure of US forces in September last year which is getting less media coverage now due to the war in Ukraine.
Last month, the Red Cross warned that the Afghanistan’s banking system is paralysed and may risk international efforts to get financial aid into the war-ravaged country.
Many of their people are facing starvation and malnutrition in addition to unemployment. Even those who are working are not getting paid consistently.
But what the writer would like to caution Putrajaya is that while we should do our best for the Afghani people, we must not be seen being too friendly to the Talibans.
Why is that important? No, it is not about pleasing Western powers but it is all about protecting our national security given the barbaric Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) is in a power struggle with the Taliban.
Make no mistake about it. Unlike other terror groups, ISIS has far-reaching networks across the globe and do not rely on leadership to carry out attacks.
While our intelligence and security apparatuses have thus far managed to curtail attacks by ISIS in this country, our political leaders must help the former too by exercising caution when dealing with political turmoil of other countries so as to not court controversy with terror networks.
And bear in mind that many countries still list the Taliban itself as a terror group. – March 8, 2022.
