ISLAMABAD: US Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad and US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice G. Wells arrived in Islamabad on Monday.
According to the State Department press release, Wells will “meet senior Pakistani government officials to discuss bilateral issues of mutual interest including trade, investment and regional stability.” She concluded her visit to India this week.
Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Dr. Muhammad Faisal said in a tweet that the meetings were “part of regular consultations, on bilateral relationship & Afghan peace process.”
However, Khalilzad reiterated on Sunday that any peace agreement would be based on the assurance of permanent cease-fire and ending the decades-old Afghan war.
In an interview with Tolo News, Khalilzad said the Taliban’s demands were yet focused on the withdrawal of US forces from the country.
“Our focus is on terrorism. No agreement will be done if we don’t see a permanent cease-fire and a commitment to end the war,” he said. “We are seeking peace and (a) political settlement … We want peace to give us the possibility to withdraw.”
Khalilzad arrived in Kabul on Saturday to meet President Ashraf Ghani as part of his regional tour ahead of his next meeting with the Taliban in Qatar.
During Wells’ visit to Pakistan in November last year, Islamabad and Washington had agreed to continue their efforts to promote shared objectives of peace and stability in the region, ahead of early negotiations between the Afghan Taliban and special US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to end the Afghan war.
Following the collapse of intra-Afghan talks earlier this month, Pakistan on Thursday expressed its neutrality in the Afghan conflict, and Prime Minister Imran Khan said in a policy statement that the Taliban’s spring offensive and Afghan forces’ operations undermined the peace process.
Pakistan is highly dismayed by the surge of violence in Afghanistan from all sides,” he said.
Pakistan and the US have long been at odds over the war in Afghanistan, but in February this year, President Donald Trump publicly noted that relations had improved over a “short period of time.”
Alice Wells, Khalilzad arrive in Islamabad to discuss Afghan peace
Alice Wells, Khalilzad arrive in Islamabad to discuss Afghan peace
- Will meet senior Pakistani officials to discuss an array of bilateral issues, regional peace
- Any peace agreement will be based on assurance of permanent cease-fire, Khalilzad says
Return of millions of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran pushes Afghanistan to the brink, UN warns
- Afghan authorities provide care packages for those returning that include food aid, cash, a telephone SIM card and transportation
- But the returns have strained resources in a country struggling with a weak economy, severe drought and two devastating earthquakes
GENEVA: The return of millions of Afghans from neighboring Pakistan and Iran is pushing Afghanistan to the brink, the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday, describing an unprecedented scale of returns.
A total of 5.4 million people have returned to Afghanistan since October 2023, mostly from the two neighboring countries, UNHCR’s Afghanistan representative Arafat Jamal said, speaking to a U.N. briefing in Geneva via video link from Kabul, the Afghan capital.
“This is massive, and the speed and scale of these returns has pushed Afghanistan nearly to the brink,” Jamal said.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in Oct. 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcible deportation and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.
Since then, millions have streamed across the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there.
Last year alone, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, Jamal said, noting it was “the largest number of returns that we have witnessed to any single country.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have criticized the mass expulsions.
Afghanistan was already struggling with a dire humanitarian situation and a poor human rights record, particularly relating to women and girls, and the massive influx of people amounting to 12% of the population has put the country under severe strain, Jamal said.
Already in just the month and a half since the start of this year, about 150,000 people had returned to Afghanistan, he added.
Afghan authorities provide care packages for those returning that include some food aid, cash, a telephone SIM card and transportation to parts of the country where they might have family. But the returns have strained resources in a country that was already struggling to cope with a weak economy and the effects of a severe drought and two devastating earthquakes.
In November, the U.N. development program said nine out of 10 families in areas of Afghanistan with high rates of return were resorting to what are known as negative coping mechanisms — either skipping meals, falling into debt or selling their belongings to survive.
“We are deeply concerned about the sustainability of these returns,” Jamal said, noting that while 5% of those who return say they will leave Afghanistan again, more than 10% say they know of someone who has already left.
“These decisions, I would underscore, to undertake dangerous journeys, are not driven by a lack of a desire to remain in the country, on the contrary, but the reality that many are unable to rebuild their viable and dignified lives,” he said.
