Dr. Abdullah Abdullah Chairman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation met Tuesday with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and discussed normalization of bilateral ties.
Abdullah Abdullah in his second day in Pakistan said the era of bellicose rhetoric and conspiracy theories is over and it is time to write a new chapter in Afghanistan-Pakistan bilateral ties.
Abdullah began his trip to Pakistan on Monday to seek Islamabad’s assistance in crucial peace process, against the awful backdrop of perennially tumultuous bilateral ties between the two nations. Many presume this to be the herald of the new age of Afghan-Pak ties as Islamabad has shown unprecedented support for Afghan peace negotiations, despite a wide cynicism among Afghans about Pakistan’s foreign policy towards Afghanistan.
Before that, he delivered a speech at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. He said a peaceful future for Afghanistan is on the horizon. He stated that the first meeting of peace and reconciliation talks with the Taliban began in Doha on September 12, and that negotiating teams from both sides were now discussing ways to end the war peacefully and reach a political settlement.
He lauded Pakistan’s role in the Afghan peace process as ‘constructive’ and said that Pakistan has a more important role to play in building a peaceful and prosperous region, not only in helping it succeed, but also in standing by the people and government of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now looking forward to Pakistan’s practical and earnest efforts, he said.
“I believe that now is the time to move beyond the repetitive slogans and conspiracy theories that have held us back, and to mark a new chapter in Afghan-Pak bilateral ties,” Mr. Abdullah said. “It is not in the interest of any country to continue the current situation,” he said. He added that both countries now need a new approach to looking at the region as a “single region”.
