Afghan-Pak ties key to peace: FM

Zalmai Rassoul says both countries deeply engaged in discussions.

VILNIUS:

Afghanistan and Pakistan must settle their bitter differences in a drive to stabilise their conflict-ravaged neighbourhood, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul said on Wednesday.

“Our relations with Pakistan are fundamental for peace and stability not only in Afghanistan but Pakistan and also in the whole region, in the world,” Rassoul told reporters at an economic development conference in Lithuania focusing on his region.

“We have been engaged very deeply with the Pakistan government on discussing the fundamental issues, because terrorism and extremism is not only hurting Afghanistan, it is hurting Pakistan too,” he said.

“It is time that we work together to find a solution. We are deeply engaged in that and hope that we will see tangible results soon,” he added.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have been locked in acrimony over attacks carried out across their porous and often unmarked border.

Islamabad has said that the Pakistani Taliban are using havens in Afghanistan to resume attacks in the northwest. Afghanistan, in turn, has complained about cross-border artillery shells and rockets being fired from Pakistan.

The European Union’s Afghanistan envoy Vygaudas Usackas, who is from Lithuania, said bolstering ties among countries in the region was crucial.

“The importance of peace and stability in Afghanistan is increasingly recognised by Afghanistan’s neighbours,” Usackas told the conference.

“Yet we should be under no illusion that regional engagement will remain a challenging subject. All too often we have perceived a large gap between rhetoric and reality here,” he said.

“What we should not expect, however, is an immediate breakthrough. But considerable momentum has now been created and this in itself is important.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2012.