Fraught with challenges: Afghan president faces first major test on Pakistan visit

Talks are expected to focus on bolstering security cooperation

ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s new president, Ashraf Ghani, will visit Pakistan later this week in a renewed effort by the two neighbours to warm up their otherwise frosty ties.

Revealing details of the upcoming visit, a senior foreign ministry official said on Monday that Ghani would be arriving in Islamabad later this week to hold meetings with Pakistan’s leadership.

During his day-long trip, Ghani will hold formal talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other senior leaders on a wide array of issues, including the festering threat of militancy to both countries following the withdrawal of US forces later this year.

Ghani’s visit comes on the heels of a trip undertaken by Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif to Kabul, which was widely seen as the ice breaker between the two sides after the presidential elections in Afghanistan.

During the visit, General Raheel offered to train Afghan security forces in a move aimed at addressing deepening suspicion among Afghanistan’s security establishment about Pakistan’s role.

Meanwhile, the Afghan president’s spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that Ghani wants to build “real and honest cooperation and friendship” during his visit to Islamabad.

Nazifullah Salarzai, the Afghan president’s spokesperson, said the Afghan leader would visit Pakistan this week for an official meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

While officials are still finalising the agenda, Salarzai added that the talks will focus on bolstering economic ties and security cooperation.

“Afghanistan wants to have real and honest cooperation and friendship with this neighbouring country,” Salarzai said while referring to Pakistan.

Ghani, who was inaugurated in September, faces a long list of challenges on the foreign-policy front, but managing the relationship with his country’s powerful neighbour -with which it shares a porous, 1,500-mile-long border- promises to be one of his biggest tests.

Under the presidency of Ghani’s predecessor Hamid Karzai, ties between the two were particularly strained. Karzai routinely accused Pakistan of providing support to the Taliban.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2014.