Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is likely to visit Afghanistan next week and is expected to hold talks with Afghan officials, the CEO’s office has confirmed.
Abbasi’s trip is aimed to improve ties between Kabul and Islamabad and to encourage Islamabad to contribute honestly in the fight against terrorism in the region, said Jawed Faisal, deputy spokesman to CEO Abdullah Abdullah.
This comes after President Ashraf Ghani extended an official invitation to Abbasi last week.
In addition, the French ambassador to Afghanistan François Resher has said that Pakistan has an important role to play in the stabilization of Afghanistan and that there is a need for more pressure to be put on Pakistan to act honestly.
“At the moment, the Americans are the elders in Afghanistan, therefore it is them (Americans) who can work for peace or lack of peace in Afghanistan,” said Abdul Latif Pedram, an MP.
This comes ahead of a planned conference of religious scholars from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia. The meeting, which was expected to be held in Jakarta by the end of this month, aimed to discuss ways to forge peace in Afghanistan.
However, High Peace Council (HPC) officials have said that Pakistan scholars do not seem to be interested in the conference.
“Jakarta meeting is expected in April, the exact date will be announced once the meeting is finalized, but the fundamental discussion is that we are waiting for Pakistan to announce its readiness (to attend) the meeting,” HPC spokesman Sayed Ehsan Tahiri said.
Two weeks ago Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Nasser Khan Janjua also visited Kabul for talks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
A US congress delegation, led by Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, arrived in Kabul on Wednesday night and met with President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah at the Presidential Palace, the president’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
At the meeting, Pelosi assured the Afghan leaders of the US’s commitment to Afghanistan in fighting insurgency, the statement said.
Ghani told the delegation US President Donald Trump’s new policy for South Asia and Afghanistan has brought about a “positive mood” and today Kabul and Washington are closer to their goals, according to the statement.