HoA: Sartaj Aziz meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, discuss ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan

Pakistan Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz on Sunday met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during which they discussed ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference. Both Ghani and Aziz had arrived here last evening.

The bilateral meeting came amid Afghanistan expressing its anguish over Islamabad’s not so cooperative approach towards the peace process in the war-ravaged country.

Afghan government has also been critical of Pakistan over rising terror attacks on Afghanistan by militant groups operating from Pakistani soil.

“They discussed prospects of peace, development and stability in Afghanistan,” a Pakistani source said.

Ahead of the conference, Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the “greatest threat” to regional peace and stability and pressed for adopting a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism.

The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.