By Xinhua
Islamabad : Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said the Aghanistan-Pakistan peace jirga (council meeting of tribal elders) in Kabul will be a turning point in relations between the two countries.
Pakistan is committed to a strong, stable and peaceful Afghanistan and will support all efforts to achieve this objective, Aziz was quoted as saying by the state run Associated Press of Pakistan.
The prime minister was speaking to Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who is also chairperson of the Pakistani jirga commission.
Aimed at stopping violence and combating terrorism in tribal areas near the Pakistani-Afghan border, the grand joint jirga, held in Kabul Aug 8-12, was joined by a total of nearly 700 tribal elders and officials, 350 from each country.
Increased interaction with our counterparts in Afghanistan would help better understanding of issues on both sides, said Aziz.
Since joining the Washington-led war on terror in 2001, Pakistan has sent nearly 90,000 troops to hunt remnants of the Al Qaeda and Taliban, who sneaked into its tribal areas to seek refuge following the fall of militia in Kabul.
But Afghanistan continued to accuse Pakistan of harbouring Taliban and Al Qaeda militants and lending a blind eye to illegal movement of guerrillas. Pakistan categorically rejected the allegations.
Saying it has done its best to stop fighters’ cross-border movement, Pakistan called for increased efforts of concerned parties in stopping violence along the 2,500-km-long border it shares with Afghanistan.