Pakistan, Afghanistan exchange lists of wanted terrorists

MOSCOW: Afghanistan and Pakistan have exchanged lists of wanted terrorists and agreed to develop further cooperation, Afghan president's National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar told the foreign media on Saturday.

Last week, the Afghan adviser took part in the high-level security meeting with representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Kingdom that sought to settle the crisis in the Pak-Afghan relations.

"We have given them a list of wanted terrorists and they have also given us a list. One of the key proposals that Afghanistan had for them was 'let’s cooperate, let's act on this list and let's have the third party to help and to verify and to monitor the process’. In this respect, we made progress, we agreed on a mechanism of cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan involving the quadrilateral arrangements that we had earlier with the United States and China," Atmar said in an interview.

He pointed out that the talks were fruitful and constructive but some issues were still unresolved – primarily due to lack of trust between the countries.

Atmar added that the measures aimed at ensuring de-escalation of the situation at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, including opening the crossing points, had been discussed.

"We are hoping that we will see some progress based on our agreement in the coming day or two [days]," Atmar stressed.

The presidential adviser recalled that 12 countries would take part in the conference on Afghanistan in Russia on April 14.