Regional ‘friends’: ‘Need new policy on Afghanistan’

Bilateral relations discussed on roundtable talk.

LAHORE:

Pakistan and Afghanistan must enter a long-term agreement to promote bilateral relations, former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali said at a round table discussion on Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations—Issues and Challenges on Sunday. The discussion was organised by the Citizen Media Commission.

Ali appreciated the two countries’ efforts to improve bilateral relations and said recent regional developments were very important for Pakistan. “Afghanistan, too, realises that peace and development in Afghanistan will not be possible without Pakistan’s support.”



Analyst Aimal Khan said the Afghan government was also keen on improving its relations with Pakistan by removing misunderstandings. He said that it was a good indication that most of the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan had appreciated the governments’ efforts to normalise relations between the two countries. He said the Afghan government had also noted Pakistan’s reservations regarding India’s growing presence in Afghanistan.

The speakers at the roundtable expressed the view that Pakistan should play a positive role in ensuring a democratic, stable and strong government in Afghanistan. Pakistan must give up trying, as it had in the past, to install a government of its choosing in Afghanistan, they said.

“We need to expand our circle of friends in region and for that, we must remove misunderstandings” one of the speakers said.

They also stressed the need for the government to formulate a new policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan in consultation with all stake holders. They highlighted the need to stress the fact that Pakistan’s foreign policy was made by a democratically elected civilian government rather than one state institution.

The speakers also stressed the need for both countries to establish a comprehensive Joint Anti-Terrorism Mechanism. Some of the speakers said that India could possibly create hurdles to Pakistan’s efforts to normalise its relations with Afghanistan.

They said efforts should be made to further people-to-people contact and cultural exchanges. One way of doing that could be for media people from both countries visiting each other more frequently, they said.

Aimal Khan Khatak, Major General (retd) Zahid Mubashir, Salman Abid, Latif Chaudhry, Brig (retd) Farooq Hameed Khan, Dr Iqbal Khalil, Nasir Memon, Brig (retd) Syed Ghazanfar Ali, Dr Ijaz Butt and Tanvir Shahzad were among other speakers.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2015.