Afghanistan's president will make his first visit to Pakistan in more than a year in an effort to mend strained relations between the two countries and in the hopes that he can enlist the support of the new Pakistani government to help end the nearly 12-year Afghan war, an official said today.
The two nations have had tense ties for years, and Afghanistan has accused Pakistan in the past of supporting the Taliban in the movement's fight against the Afghan government.
But the election two months ago of a new prime minister in Pakistan has raised hopes in Kabul that Islamabad will be more open to helping start peace talks with the Taliban than the previous government, which it perceived to be more hostile to Afghanistan and its president, Hamid Karzai.
Pakistan is seen as a key player in the Afghan peace process, and the US has been trying to enlist its support to help coax the Taliban into peace talks.
Islamabad has ties to the Taliban that date back to the 1990s, and many of the group's leaders are believed to be detained or living on Pakistani territory.
Afghanistan's government recently charged that Pakistan had floated the idea of a power-sharing deal with the Taliban, while Karzai's chief of staff went so far as to suggest that a recently opened Taliban office in the Gulf state of Qatar was a plot by Pakistan or the US to break up the country.
Karzai's government has in the past rejected sharing power with the Taliban.
The Taliban opened the Qatar office in June, but then shuttered it a month later, at least temporarily, after a dispute broke out over their use of the name and flag they had during their five-year rule in Afghanistan.
Kabul charged that the office resembled an embassy for a government-in-waiting. It is not clear when, or if, it will reopen.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai told reporters that Karzai had accepted an invitation delivered by Pakistan one week ago and that a date for the visit would soon be set. He last visited Pakistan in mid-2011.
