Pakistan willing to cooperate with Afghanistan in all sectors: Asif

 

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday said Pakistan is willing to cooperate with Afghanistan in all sectors including security.

Asif conveyed the country's stance during telephonic contact with his Afghan counterpart, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Pakistan gives importance to its relations with Afghanistan, said the foreign minister and added that Pakistan supports the steps taken by the Afghan leadership to ensure peace in Afghanistan.

Both foreign ministers agreed to cooperate more in the future, added the FO statement. 

Earlier in the day, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Aizaz Chaudhry had said that Pakistan is willing to work with Afghanistan. 

In an interview with the state-owned television channel, Chaudhry reiterated that Pakistan has destroyed all terrorist safe havens on its soil. 

It is now Afghanistan’s turn to destroy terrorist safe havens on its soil, he added. 

The ambassador insisted that terrorists present in Pakistan have roots in Afghanistan, and certain points raised in the new US policy for the region are debatable.

Asif is scheduled to visit China on a one-day visit on September 8. 

BRICS statement 

On Monday, leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa condemned "terrorism in all its forms and manifestations" at the 9th BRICS Summit in China. The member states released the Xiamen declaration expressing concern over the security situation in the region.

"We strongly condemn terrorist attacks resulting in death to innocent Afghan nationals....We, in this regard, express concern on the security situation in the region and violence caused by the Taliban, ISIL/DAISH, Al Qaida and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, TTP and Hizb ut-Tahrir," said the declaration.

Following the BRICS statement, Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir rejected the declaration naming terrorist groups in the region by leaders of BRICS countries and said there are no safe havens for terrorists on Pakistani soil.

Responding to this, Khawaja Asif had said the BRICS declaration, which named terrorist groups in the South Asia region, cannot be termed as a failure of the country's foreign policy.

He had also claimed that military and civil leadership are on the same page that Pakistan has to make a clean break from its past. He accepted that Pakistan has made some mistakes in the past, adding that the country should not have participated in the proxy war in Afghanistan during Zia-ul-Haq's tenure as well as the war on terror.

Asif also remarked that countries shouldn’t put pressure on countries they share a close relationship with. “We need to tell our friends that we have improved our house. We need to bring our house in order to prevent facing embarrassment on an international level.”