COAS General Bajwa meets President Ghani in Kabul -Daily Notable
Kabul: Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa made an unannounced visit to Kabul and met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday.
On its official Twitter account, the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul released a picture of General Bajwa and Ghani at the presidential palace.
The army chief was accompanied by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director-General Lieutenant-General Faiz Hameed and Pakistan’s special envoy on Afghanistan Muhammad Sadiq.
Further details are yet to be provided but the visit by the COAS is being perceived in connection with the ongoing efforts seeking a solution to the United States war in Afghanistan – a conflict that has lasted nearly two decades.
This is the first visit to Kabul by a high-ranking Pakistani official since Ghani’s second term in office began.
It comes ahead of the imminent intra-Afghan talks and only two days after US President Donald Trump’s point man for Afghanistan held talks with General Bajwa to discuss the next steps for advancing the peace process that has moved slowly since the landmark deal signed between the US and Afghan Taliban on February 29.
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The bilateral relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan is often marred by deep mistrust, but General Bajwa’s visit today implies a positive development between the neighboring countries going forward, as well as progress in the peace process.
Earlier, the US point person on the matter, Zalmay Khalilzad, met with army chief General Bajwa and DG ISI Lt-Gen Faiz Hameed and other senior security personnel in Islamabad.
An official handout issued by the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), stated that during the meeting matters of “mutual interest, overall security situation including Afghan refugees issue and Afghan reconciliation process and Pak-Afghan border management” were discussed.
On Monday, Khalilzad had also met with a Taliban delegation in Qatar, which was highlighted as another development in the progress with sources claiming that the intra-Afghan talks are expected to take place by the end of this month.
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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the dialogue will likely happen virtually but recent developments suggest all parties are working towards stabilizing the conflict.
Pakistan has played a pivotal role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table with the US and eventually led to the deal between the US and the insurgents.
On February 29, the US signed a troop withdrawal deal with the Taliban in Doha, but its attempts to usher the insurgent group towards peace talks with the Afghan government were mired in setbacks and violence surged in March and April.-PUNA
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