Pakistan has called for stronger trade relations with Afghanistan and more co-operation on regional security as Afghan President Ashraf Ghani visited Islamabad, pledging renewed effort to end the 18-year conflict in Afghanistan.
The visit comes amid a series of meetings among regional countries and talks between US officials and the Taliban on a withdrawal of foreign troops and a political settlement between the Kabul government and the insurgent movement.
Ghani was welcomed by a 21-gun salute, but relations between the two countries have long been strained.
Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of supporting the Taliban, a charge Pakistan denies, saying that it has suffered heavily from the fighting.
The US has also pressed Islamabad to do more to curb militant groups based in its territory, most recently on Wednesday when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Pakistan could not support “cross-border terror”.
Pakistan insists it wants to help the Afghan peace process, and last week it hosted a meeting of senior Afghan politicians and members of the Taliban as part of an intra-Afghan dialogue.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said in a statement that Pakistan wants a “qualitative transformation in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations” and repeated Pakistan’s support for an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process”.
“It was a productive interaction with Afghan officials,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters.
Pakistan’s powerful military chief General Qamar Bajwa was part of the security delegation discussing how the two countries could co-operate to curtail cross-border movement of religious militants, officials said.
Qureshi also told Ghani that his visit should prompt a new chapter in bilateral relations, saying: “Let this visit of yours be a watershed.”
Similar declarations have been made repeatedly over the years, then followed by renewed episodes of mistrust, but both countries are aware that their struggling economies cannot afford permanent hostility.
As well as the peace process, the two have joined moves to increase transport and energy connectivity projects, including the Central Asia-South Asia electricity transmission line and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.
“The two leaders agreed that enduring peace in Afghanistan would bring rich economic dividends to both the countries,” Prime Minister Khan’s office said in a statement.
This is Ghani’s third visit to Pakistan, and follows the recently-held first review session of the landmark Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS).
His visit came shortly before talks are expected to resume between US officials and the Taliban in Doha.
The talks are aimed at agreeing a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign troops and guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used as a base for militant groups.
However, the Kabul government has so far been shut out of the peace process by the Taliban’s refusal to talk to what it considers an illegitimate “puppet” regime appointed by foreign powers.
“Ghani wants us to make sure that the Taliban talks to his government as well before reaching any p
eace deal with Americans,” a Pakistani official familiar with the meetings said, on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan is believed to have a lot of influence on the Afghan Taliban, most of whom allegedly live in the country’s southwestern province of Baluchistan with their families.
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