Pakistan’s role in peace efforts hailed

Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has arrived after having successful tour of four regional countries – Afghanistan, Russia, China and Iran. On the first leg of his tour, he had visited Afghanistan and had meetings with his counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani and also met President Dr. Ashraf Ghani. On the last leg of his tour, he and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov Wednesday agreed to continue efforts, including through Moscow Format of Consultations, for supporting reconciliation under an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. The agreement to this effect was reached during talks between the two foreign ministers, held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Recent developments concerning Afghan peace process were also discussed. It was underlined that being the most important stakeholders, Pakistan and Russia had shared interests and concerns in Afghanistan and had the common goal of supporting efforts to restore peace and stability there.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov acknowledged Pakistan’s efforts in the Afghan settlement and offered Russia’s support to bring stability in the region. Both leaders also underscored the need to harmonise various regional approaches for developing a consensus on various issues. Foreign Minister Qureshi, who was on a two-day (December 25-26) of the Russian Federation, was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua and senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He led the detailed talks with Russian Foreign Minister, on various bilateral and regional issues. He stated that Pakistan greatly valued its relations with the Russian Federation and also expressed Pakistan’s desire to forge a long-term, multidimensional partnership and friendship with Russia. Both sides expressed satisfaction on the upward trajectory of bilateral relations. The first meeting between PM Imran Khan and Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev in Shanghai, in November 2018, had set the tone to deepen cooperation in all areas.
Views were also exchanged to support each other’s position in multilateral forums. It was also decided to maintain close and regular contact for strengthening understanding on important issues. Shah Mehmood Qureshi expressed confidence that the Pakistan-China-Afghanistan trilateral dialogue forum will prove useful for peace and stability in the region and social development. It would not be wrong to say that trilateral meeting had positive effect on the US-Taliban talks in UAE. In fact, the US was concerned about Russia’s initiative for peace in Afghanistan, as Russia had cordial relations with Afghan government and was in contact with the Taliban. Last month, Taliban envoys had taken part for the first time in high-level international talks, meeting Afghan officials in Moscow as part of a Russian-sponsored peace effort. Representatives from the militants’ Doha office had said they were taking part alongside senior diplomats from the region to find a peaceful solution to the issue of Afghanistan.
The U.S. special peace envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad said he had productive meetings in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) as part of efforts to encourage negotiations between the Taliban and Kabul to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan. He termed Pakistan’s efforts for peace in Afghanistan as commendable. Khalilzad met Pakistan’s army chief during a brief visit to Islamabad on December 19 and left for Kabul to update Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah on his engagements with regional partners and others to reach a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan. UAE state news agency WAM added that a new round of talks would be held in Abu Dhabi soon. Taliban envoys are in discussions with America to free two captive Western professors in return for as many as 100 imprisoned militants, as part of a trust-building measure to spur a peace process.