By News Desk
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation Dr Abdullah Abdullah on Tuesday lauded Pakistan’s efforts for Afghan peace process, saying the region’s future was linked with working towards a joint vision of prosperity.
“The time is now for both nations, to make a further detour, define a new vision, address outstanding issues as well as our shared interest, [and] realise that peace and stability in Afghanistan or any country in our south and central Asian geography [will] have a far reaching ripple effect,” said Abdullah in an address to the Institute for Strategic Studies in Islamabad.
He thanked Pakistan for facilitating the Afghan peace process and the country’s efforts in ensuring the opportunity for dignified, durable and sustainable peace in the war-torn country. “Pakistan has played an important role in facilitating this moment, and my delegation and I, thank you, the government and people of Pakistan for their efforts,” he said.
The Afghan leader, who is in Islamabad for a three-day trip, emphasised that the start of negotiations between Kabul and Taliban was an “important opportunity”. He added as he was speaking in Pakistan, delegations from both the sides were in Doha “sitting around a table discussing ways and means of ending the decades of conflict through a political settlement in Afghanistan”.
The chairman for the reconciliation council urged there was a “need to go beyond the usual stale rhetoric and shadowy conspiracy theories”. He stressed “there are no winners in war, and no losers in peace”.
In the realms of challenges such as terrorism and coronavirus pandemic, he said Pakistan and Afghanistan needed to work in close collaboration to overcome the related problems. He appreciated Pakistan for hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over four decades and endorsed their proposed dignified return to homeland.
Dr Abdullah emphasised the need for strengthening bilateral relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the fields of transit trade and people-to-people contacts.
While Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Pakistan desired sustainable peace in Afghanistan and would continue to extend support in this regard. He said Pakistan’s peace was linked with Afghanistan’s peace and stability, and also of the entire region. Qureshi said Afghanistan must realise that Pakistan wanted to be its “friend and not master”. He assured Pakistan’s support for an Afghan-owned settlement of the situation.
Later on Tuesday, the visiting Afghan leader called on Prime Minister Imran Khan. During the meeting, Khan commended the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations. He expressed the hope Afghan leadership would seize that historic opportunity to work together constructively and secure an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement. He underscored that all Afghan parties must work for reduction in violence leading to ceasefire, PM Office Media Wing in a press release said.
The Prime Minister conveyed that Pakistan would support whatever the Afghans agreed upon about the future of Afghanistan. Khan reiterated his longstanding position that there was no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and that a political solution was the only way forward.
The Prime Minister expressed the hope that Abdullah Abdullah’s visit would help open a new chapter in the bilateral relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He further reaffirmed Pakistan’s full support for the post-conflict Afghanistan on its path to reconstruction and economic development.
He assured the Afghan leader Pakistan would continue to undertake all efforts to facilitate Afghan transit trade and deepen bilateral trade and economic ties and people-to-people exchanges with Afghanistan. The Prime Minister said he was looking forward to his visit to Afghanistan on the invitation of President Ashraf Ghani.