(WNAM Monitoring): Pakistan and Afghanistan reached certain agreements during trade talks in Kabul, including beginning negotiations on a revised transit trade agreement and implementing a temporary admission document (TAD) for trade vehicle drivers, officials said on Friday.
Talks were held amid tensions following Pakistan’s March 18 airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Patika and Khost provinces in “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations”, which Afghan authorities said killed eight people.
The Foreign Office had confirmed the strikes, saying they were aimed at the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, which was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, including one on security forces in North Waziristan that martyred seven soldiers.
On Thursday, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a weekly press briefing that Commerce Secretary Mohammad Khurrum Agha visited Afghanistan from March 24-27 to discuss bilateral trade and transit with his Afghan counterpart Nooruddin Azizi.
The two sides discussed a bilateral Preferential Trade Agreement, implementing a TAD for trade vehicle drivers, multimodal air transit and issues related to transit trade.
“We are encouraged by the progress made on these issues and remain committed to promoting trade and people-to-people ties with Afghanistan,” the FO had said.
Pakistan embassy officials in Kabul said today that progress was achieved on multiple issues — including a bilateral preferential trade agreement, air transit, the operation of border crossings 24/7 for trade purposes, addressing the issues in transit trade through Afghanistan and Afghan Transit Trade that passes through Pakistan.
Afghan charge d’affaires Sardar Shakib Ahmad rushed to Kabul to brief officials about his meetings in Islamabad. He met acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and briefed him regarding recent developments in the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, deputy foreign ministry spokesman Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takkal said.
