Pakistan not supporting or strengthening any Afghan group: Fawad Chaudhry

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is not supporting or strengthening any one group in Afghanistan, but instead is trying to create an environment where all factions can come together to form a united government, says Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry.

Chaudhry said this at a ceremony organised by the Pak-Afghan Youth Forum on Friday. He said it is the only way to establish peace and form a stable government in Afghanistan.

He maintained that no one group has enough power to form a stable government. The information minister pointed that the future economy of the region depends on a stable and peaceful Afghanistan. He added that Pakistan wants to have access to the Central Asian States and build strong ties with them.

He said that Pakistan has already signed a railway track project with Uzbekistan, which will run from Peshawar to Mazar-e-Sharif and then to Tashkent. He also spoke about promoting trade by truck to Central Asian States via Afghanistan and stressed that for such projects to be successful, peace in Afghanistan is necessary.

Creating peace in Afghanistan is a difficult task and Pakistan and Afghanistan are suffering consequences from superpowers’ operations, he said. Earlier, the Pak-Afghan Youth Forum was addressed by the prime minister and Chief of the Army Staff. The Afghan delegation met with the PM online with the aid of Pashto and Dari subtitles.

The prime minister spoke to Afghan journalists and the youth about building a Pak-Afghan future, Chaudhry said.