ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbasi Jilani stressed on “collective action against terrorism” in his meeting with Afghan commerce minister Hajji Nooruddin Azizi this week to ensure that the countries can harness the full potential for regional trade and connectivity, Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Azizi is leading an Afghan delegation that arrived in Islamabad on Monday to attend a tripartite meeting between Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, the Afghan embassy said. It added that the Afghan delegation would also discuss trade and travel with Pakistani authorities.
Pakistan has seen an uptick in militant attacks ever since a fragile truce between the state and Pakistani Taliban broke down last year. Pakistan says militants launch attacks against its security forces and civilians from Afghanistan’s soil, an allegation that Kabul disputes. In an unprecedented development, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar this month blamed Afghanistan’s interim administration for not doing enough to address Pakistan’s security concerns by clamping down on militants operating from its territory.
“He [Jilani] reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to mutually beneficial ties with Afghanistan,” the spokesperson of Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) wrote on social media platform X.
“FM said full potential for regional trade & connectivity can be harnessed with collective action against terrorism.”
Separately, Afghanistan’s Embassy in Islamabad said the delegation held talks with Jilani on bilateral trade, particularly Afghan traders’ stranded goods at the Karachi port.
It said the two representatives also discussed the “smooth transfer” of properties belonging to Afghan refugees to Afghanistan and related issues.
According to the Pakistani government’s directives, the families of undocumented foreign nationals cannot carry more than Rs50,000 ($176) in cash at a time when Pakistan is facing financial woes of its own.
The arrival of the Afghan delegation comes weeks after the Pakistani government announced measures to tighten control on the Afghan transit trade and imposed fees on several goods, banning the trade of more than 210 items including cloth and all kinds of tires.
Ties between the two Asian neighbors further strained as Pakistani authorities continue to take action against undocumented migrants, most of them being Afghans. Pakistan intensified its crackdown after the expiry of a Nov. 1 deadline it gave to all undocumented foreigners last month to leave the country.
Around 1.7 million, out of a total of four million, Afghans in Pakistan had no documents, according to the Pakistani government. The expulsion order followed suicide bombings in Pakistan this year that the government said involved mostly Afghan nationals. The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan has rejected Pakistan’s allegations and said Afghans do not pose a security threat to Pakistan.
