Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif. PHOTO: REUTERS
The Afghan Defence Ministry said Sunday that General Raheel Sharif will represent Pakistan in the trilateral meeting with Afghan Chief of Army Staff General Sher Mohammad Karimi and International Security Assistance Force Commander General Joseph Dunford.
"The Chief of the Army Staff will be going to Kabul on Monday for a day-long visit. He will hold important meetings with Afghan military and ISAF commanders" a text message from the army's Inter-Services Public Relations said, confirming the visit.
General Raheel will be attending the trilateral meeting in Kabul for the first time, the Afghan Defence Ministry spokesperson General Zahir Azeemi said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.
“The tripartite meeting is aimed at discussing cooperation in security and in fighting terrorism,” the Afghan defence ministry said.
The meeting is important as it takes place at a time when foreign troops are devising an exit strategy and Afghanistan and Nato need Pakistan cooperation to ward off any threat to Afghan security.
General Raheel Sharif’s visit coincides with recent tensions along the border in Balochistan.
Afghanistan claimed on Thursday that one of its border police officers was killed as clashes broke out with Pakistani troops along the border in southern Kandahar province.
The Afghan Interior Ministry had also alleged that Pakistani forces had started “construction of bunkers and check posts inside the Afghan territory” in the Maroof district of Kandahar.
The Pakistan Army had rejected these claims by Afghan officials and in turn accused Afghan forces of firing at a Pakistani post.
A security official had stated that the Afghan National Army troops resorted to unprovoked firing on Pakistani post in Loe Bund area near Qilla Saifullah in Balochistan province.
The Afghan interior ministry insists that no country can build any checkpoint and bunker four kilometers of the border under the tripartite agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nato.
They claim Pakistani forces have violated the agreement and dug bunkers and built posts two kilometers near the Zero Point along the border.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have nearly 2500 kilometers of a joint border and both routinely accuse each other of cross-border attacks.
Pakistan says that senior leaders of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have regrouped fighters in the Afghanistan border region and frequently launch attacks on Pakistani border posts.
Officials also say that the TTP chief, Maulvi Fazalullah, leads his men in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province.
In February Pakistan said that the TTP executed 23 Frontier Corps soldiers inside Afghanistan. The FC men had been kidnapped from a check post in Mohmand agency in 2010 and were believed to have been taken to other side of the border. Pakistan had lodged a formal protest over the incident.
COMMENTS (6)
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@unbelievable: Firstly, the idiocy of Western nations will be discussed at length, the reporting of their gullible journos and Afghans double game.
"...Afghanistan and Nato need Pakistan cooperation to ward off any threat to Afghan security." Get over it. No one needs Pakistan any more for anything. We don't mind it if it somehow satisfies your abject need to feel that you count still. How can Pakistan do anything to augment Afghan security when it is not able to secure its own citizens?
Useless without Iran, Russia, China and India.
What would he discuss there, when he can't discuss any sense into Nawaz Sharif, and Ch. Nisar.
No progress has been made on the decade+ long complaint by Afghanistan and ISAF of the sanctuaries provided by Pakistan .. and lets not forget the allegations of funding, training, and other support provided by the "Establishment" which have been documented by the BBC and a variety of books including The Wrong Enemy by Carlotta Gall. With that in mind what do you think these discussions are going to accomplish?
I would highly advise our eastern nieghbors to be very cautious of the border when setting up check posts as it relates to Kandahar.
Kandahar is very sacred land.