Afghan endgame: Hagel to fly into Islamabad today

This would be the first visit by a US defence secretary to Islamabad in nearly four years.

KABAL: US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel will visit Pakistan on Monday, officials said, with Afghanistan’s stalled peace process high on the agenda as well as the strained relations between Washington and Islamabad.

Hagel, who has been in Afghanistan since Saturday, will meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad in the first visit by a US defence secretary to Islamabad in nearly four years.

Ties between the two countries have been troubled over US drone strikes targeting suspected militants in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

“Secretary Hagel met with Prime Minister Sharif on his visit to Washington earlier this year and looks forward to continuing candid and productive conversations,” Pentagon’s Carl Woog told reporters on Sunday. “Secretary Hagel also looks forward to discussing with Prime Minister Sharif and other senior Pakistani officials the United States and Pakistan’s common interest in a stable Afghanistan.”

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf activists have been forcibly searching trucks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa since late November to try to disrupt Nato supply routes to Afghanistan in protest against continuing US drone strikes in tribal regions.

The US military has suspended shipments of equipment out of Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2013.