Pak and Afghanistan cannot afford risk of lawlessness, chaos: Army chief Bajwa

Pakistan and Afghanistan cannot afford the risk of lawlessness and chaos as such a situation would have catastrophic consequences for both the countries, Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has said. Chief of the Army Staff General Bajwa said this on Wednesday as he met troops on the western border and visited a hospital in Peshawar and consoled the victims of a bomb blast at a religious seminary in which eight students were killed, Dawn newspaper reported on Thursday.

General Bajwa said that Afghan refugees in Pakistan should exercise caution about inimical forces so that they were not wittingly or unwittingly used in terrorist activities, the report said. Pakistan and Afghanistan could not afford the risk of lawlessness and chaos as such a situation would have catastrophic consequences for both the countries, he said.

He said that Pakistan always desired peace in Afghanistan and would spare no effort to restore peace and stability in the neighbouring country. Pakistan and Afghanistan faced terrorism in the past two decades, he said, adding that Pakistan opened its arms and doors for the Afghan refugees.

He termed the Pakistan-Afghan border fence as a "fence of peace" which had been set up to stop illegal cross-border movement of terrorists. The Army chief said that they would not sit at ease till the elimination of all terrorists and their facilitators, adding that he had come to share the grief of the Peshawar attack.

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