Common goal: Afghan newspaper lifts lid on draft of ISI-NDS pact

ISLAMABAD:

A pro-government Afghan newspaper on Thursday published the draft of an agreement signed recently between Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency and the Afghanistan authority for combating common threats on both sides of the border.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) last month.

The Pashto-language Weesa daily claimed it had received the draft of an 8-point agreement about neutralising common threats, swapping professional experiences and jointly taking on separatists.

The draft agreement identifies terrorism, extremist outfits, armed groups, separatists and criminals as common threats, adding that both Islamabad and Kabul will take action on their respective side of the border against armed opponents.

The agreement was signed by Major-General Ahmad Mahmood Hayat, the director general of the Strategic Intelligence and Analysis of the ISI, and Lt-Gen Hassamud Din Hassam, the first deputy of Afghanistan’s NDS.

The MoU was signed a few days after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Kabul where he strongly condemned the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry had hailed the agreement after both the sides officially confirmed its signing.

“The MoU signed with Afghanistan will be helpful in combating terrorism. We are cooperating with Afghanistan in a number of fields and intelligence is one of them,” the foreign ministry spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said at one of his weekly briefings.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2015.