Crossing the Durand Line: Hamid Karzai may visit Islamabad soon – The Express Tribune
Afghan president to reciprocate Gilani’s Kabul trip at the request of President Zardari.
ISLAMABAD:
Following a recent visit to Kabul by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit Islamabad at the invitation of President Asif Ali Zardari, said Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Muhammad Sadiq.
The upcoming visit will likely also serve as the first meeting of the executive level of the multi-tier joint commission between Pakistan and Afghanistan that was set up during Gilani’s visit to Kabul, according to senior officials at the Foreign Office.
The commission was set up to boost cooperation and dialogue between senior leaders in Kabul and Islamabad. It consists of two tiers. The first tier of the upgraded commission includes the chief executives, foreign ministers and the military and intelligence chiefs of the two countries. The second tier comprises senior officials of the foreign ministries, the military and intelligence agencies.
In his April trip, the prime minister was accompanied by Gen Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, the army chief, and Gen Shuja Pasha, the head of the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
“The trip has established that the civilian and military leadership are united in their policy on Afghan affairs,” said Ambassador Sadiq.
Gilani’s visit, however, attracted considerable attention in the international press. A report by The Wall Street Journal suggested that Pakistan had asked Afghanistan to drop its alliance with the US and focus on ties with Pakistan and China.
Ambassador Sadiq rejected the allegation, saying that he had gone over the meeting’s hand-written notes with the prime minister after the report came out to try to understand where the US newspaper could have gleaned that information from.
“There was nothing in the Gilani-Karzai meeting that should be a cause of worry for the US,” Sadiq said, adding ‘’the prime minister’s trip was not designed against Washington.”
To the contrary, Ambassador Sadiq said that the meeting between Karzai and Gilani had proposed the creation of a “core group” to help move the region towards an end to the Afghan War. The group would consist of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US, he said.
Sadiq said that no decisions on Afghanistan would be taken without Pakistan’s assent.
About the strategic meeting between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the ambassador said that Pakistan had already nominated its team comprising Gen Pasha, another senior army officer and the Foreign Secretary. Kabul has yet to communicate to Islamabad about the formation of its team.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 2nd, 2011.