The President Palace (ARG) on Tuesday confirmed that a delegation from Pakistan is expected to visit Kabul in the near future and likewise a delegation from Afghanistan will visit Pakistan. However details of the upcoming tours were not exposed.

Without commenting on the intelligence sharing agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Ashraf Ghani's spokesman Shahhussain Murtazawi called on the United States and China ‘to oversee the accusations which the two countries make against each other'.

"The activities of those terrorist groups which commit crimes, have safe havens and their wounded fighters are treated there, must come to an end and the lists that we have handed to them must be assessed. Chinese government which has a facilitator role and the U.S which was monitoring the quadrilateral meetings should oversee the accusations to find that which sides are working honestly in the war against terrorism and which sides are only chanting slogans," said Murtazawi.

"We hope that the return of Pakistani delegation to Kabul and the trip of our delegation to Pakistan reach a coherent conclusion on the basis of which we could take more effective steps," added Murtazawi.

Meanwhile, Rahmatullah Nabil, former head of Afghanistan's intelligence agency - the National Directorate of Security (NDS) - said intelligence sharing agreement between the two countries was not in the interest of Afghanistan.

ARG argues that the agreement with Pakistan will open a new chapter of cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul in the campaign against terrorism and in persuading the Taliban to endorse the peace negotiation talks. However the Chinese government will have a facilitator role in the process.

But, Nabil says that terror hideouts and safe havens freely operate in Pakistan and there is no need for such an agreement with Pakistani side.

"These types of agreements are signed between governments which at least have trust in each other. If they (Afghan-Pakistani governments) exchange information with eachother, there is possibility that they provide wrong information. I think this is not a major breakthrough," said Anwarul Haq Ahadi, head of New National Front of Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) also confirmed that Afghanistan and Pakistan had reached such an agreement.

This comes few days after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Afghanistan and Pakistan where the three countries agreed to form a foreign ministers' dialogue mechanism.

Some points of the mechanism are as following:

1. The three parties are committed to maintaining regional peace and stability, enhancing regional connectivity and economic cooperation and promoting shared security and development.

2. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are willing to improve relations with each other, strengthen political mutual trust, enhance cooperation in various fields including counter-terrorism, and jointly meet security challenges. The Chinese side hopes Afghanistan and Pakistan could maintain stable and sound relations, and is willing to provide necessary assistance in this regard based on the needs of both sides.

3. Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to establish a crisis management mechanism, which will include prevention through timely and effective intelligence and information-sharing and other mutually agreed measures. This will enable the two sides to maintain timely and effective communications for counter-terrorism and other emergencies, with a view to seeking proper solution through dialogue and consultation and preventing deterioration of the situation which might have negative effect on the bilateral relationship. The Chinese side will support this mechanism.

China, Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to form a foreign minister's dialogue mechanism, said a joint statement issued by the three foreign ministries on Tuesday.

The statement also noted that the three parties support the Kabul Process initiative, "and hold the view that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization-Afghanistan Contact Group should be revived as early as possible to play a constructive role in moving forward the Afghan reconciliation process."

LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/7316

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