Afghan President to visit Pakistan to discuss bilateral ties

Pakistan today said Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani will visit the country soon to discuss various aspects of bilateral ties.
"Yes, I can confirm that the visit will take place but I cannot give you the exact dates right now. We will make the formal announcement at appropriate time," Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said, adding that a formal announcement will be made before the visit.
A government official, on condition of anonymity, said the visit will take place before the end of this month.
Aslam said army chief General Raheel Sharif is currently in Afghanistan as part of Pakistan's continuous engagement with the neighbouring country at various levels.

Last month, Sartaj Aziz, Adviser to Prime Minister had visited the war-torn country to meet its leadership. During the visit, a vision for Pakistan-Afghanistan relations was discussed.
"It had security contours as well, economic cooperation, people to people contact and enhancing political engagements as well as engagements between security officials of the two countries," Aslam said.

Pakistan had presented a proposal to Afghanistan to better manage the international border between the two nations with the latter indicating its readiness to pursue negotiations.
While commenting on the Pentagon report sent to the US Congress which accused Pakistan of using militant groups as proxies to counter the superior Indian military, Aslam said it was utterly "baseless" and "unsubstantiated".

"They related to questions about links with non-state actors and also in a way questioning Pakistan's commitment at a time when we are amid a comprehensive law enforcement operation against terrorists in Zarb-i-Azb (military operation) and we have repeatedly said that we are not making any distinction among terrorists in this operation," she said.