Pakistan's prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Afghanistan's new president Ashraf Ghani have promised to boost security and trade ties during talks in Islamabad.
Mr Sharif called the Afghan leader a "dear brother" and said the two nations signed agreements to improve train and road links, increase trade and explore defence, border and energy cooperation.
"Our security and future prosperity remain interlinked," Mr Sharif said at joint news conference on Saturday.
"I ... reaffirmed Pakistan's support for the intra-Afghan reconciliation process that the new government is initiating."
We will not permit the past to destroy the future.
In the past, the two neighbours have accused each other of harbouring Taliban insurgents across their shared border and bilateral relations were often tempestuous under the previous Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.
Mr Sharif said he felt gratified that the Afghan president had a "similar vision" on how to establish peace in the region.
Mr Ghani's two-day state visit to Pakistan comes less than two months after taking office.
"We have overcome obstacles of 13 years in three days," he said.
"We will not permit the past to destroy the future."
The Afghan government is pursuing peace talks with the Taliban, who have gained ground as NATO pulls back its troops ahead of a full withdrawal.
Kabul is also increasingly turning to regional powers for support, but it will take more than warm words between Mr Sharif and Mr Ghani to repair damaged ties between their countries.
Afghan and US officials have frequently accused Pakistani security services of links to Taliban and Haqqani network insurgents, who carry out deadly attacks in Afghanistan.
In the past two years, Pakistan has begun levelling the same accusation at Afghanistan, accusing it of tolerating bases belonging to Mullah Fazlullah, the nominal leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
Diplomats said increased trust and security cooperation was key to tackling the twin insurgencies.
But some in the powerful Pakistani security establishment are nervous about Afghanistan's increasingly warm relations with Pakistan's arch rival India.
Many Afghan officials also remain suspicious that Pakistan retains ties to some militants as a counter to Indian influence.
Reuters
Topics: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, defence-and-national-security, afghanistan, pakistan, asia First posted November 16, 2014 12:34:20View the original article here
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar