Pakistan is facilitating peace efforts in Afghanistan — Foreign Office

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is facilitating efforts for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dr. Muhammad Faisal said on Thursday.
“We believe that an intra-Afghan dialogue is the only way to a successful negotiated settlement,” he tweeted on Thursday.
A day earlier, during a trip to Pakistan, President Ashraf Ghani’s Special Envoy for the Reconciliation Process, Mohammad Umer Daudzai told Arab News in an exclusive interview that Pakistan is nudging the Taliban toward talks with the Afghan government to end the ongoing conflict.
Daudzai arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday amid efforts by the US and other countries to resolve the 17-year-old Afghan war. After landing in Islamabad, Daudzai met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday and discussed measures to accelerate the Afghan peace process and strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.
According to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, Daudzai told Qureshi that there is growing international convergence on the need to end the suffering of the Afghan people. “The Foreign Minister assured that Pakistan would do all it can to help the people of Afghanistan see the earliest possible end to bloodshed and enter a new phase of peace and prosperity,” the statement added.
Recently, US’ Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad held three rounds of peace talks with the Taliban. The fourth round of talks with US officials in Qatar this week was called off by the Taliban due to a disagreement over the involvement of Afghan officials.