Consultation process for peace dialogue between Afghan Govt, Taliban to start soon: Aziz

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 11 (APP): Advisor to Prime Minister on  Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz on Friday said that consultation process for peace dialogue between the Afghan government and
Taliban would be started in days ahead.
In a policy statement in the National Assembly, he said, it is too early to say when phase-two of the Murree peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban would be initiated.

He said that the process and consultations to initiate the dialogue would be started soon and expressed the hope the time for it was very ripe as there was a calm in fighting in
Afghanistan in these days.

He said all members of the conference recognized the role and commitment of Pakistan for Afghan peace talks for which a joint steering committee would be formed to initiate the
process.He said the outcome of the Heart of Asia Conference, as clear from the Joint Declaration, was to bring durable peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Sartaj Aziz said bringing peace in Afghanistan was very vital for the region and all the regional states and international community should jointly work to bring peace to the war-torn country.

One important breakthrough of the Heart of Asia conference, he said, was the arrival of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to Pakistan, which has improved tense relations between the two counties while the other success was participation of Indian External Affairs Minister
Sushma Swaraj in the conference.

He said important bilateral and trilateral meetings were held on sidelines of the conference and its theme was security situation in Afghanistan, improvement in relations of the two countries and reconciliation process in Afghanistan.

Sartaj Aziz said that comprehensive dialogue process with India had been restarted in which all outstanding issues including Kashmir issue would be discussed. He said it was also decided that foreign secretaries of the two countries would meet next months to set out
its modalities.

He said in this regard the government would seek guidance from standing committees on foreign affairs of both the Houses. He, however, said, it was not necessary that all the outstanding issues between the two countries would be resolved immediately.

Aziz expressed the hope that the dialogue process between Pakistan and India would bring about improvement in relations between the two countries, which would reduce tension on the Line of Control.

Talking about the resumption of cricket series between India and Pakistan, he said that he had an informal talk with Indian Foreign Minister who said that since relations between the two countries were getting better, so it would have positive impact on the cricket also.

APP Services