ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister said on Friday that a meeting between Prime Minister Imran Khan and United States President Donald Trump could materialize if progress was achieved in ongoing talks between representatives from the Taliban and the United States to find a negotiated settlement to the long Afghan war.
Last year, the Donald Trump administration restarted diplomatic efforts to end the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan after it appointed a veteran diplomat, Zalmay Khalilzad, as special representative for reconciliation in Afghanistan and launched several rounds of direct negotiations with the Taliban, which have continued this year.
In 2018, Trump asked for Pakistan’s help with faltering Afghan peace talks in a letter to new Prime Minister Khan in which he made clear that Islamabad’s assistance was “fundamental” to the health of the two countries’ strained relationship.
In an interview to Urdu News on Friday. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said progress in the ongoing talks in Doha could establish the grounds for a meeting between Khan and Trump.
When asked if progress in talks was a precondition for a Trump-Khan meeting, Mahmood said: “Don’t call it a precondition but I believe that if negotiations [between the Taliban and the US] move forward, then the environment will become favorable.”
“Negotiations [between the Taliban and the United States] are continuing in Doha,” he said. “Any headway in them can lead to a new opening in bilateral relations [between the US and Pakistan].”
Officially allies in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and the United States have a complicated relationship, bound by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan, where the United States still has 14,000 troops, but plagued by accusations Islamabad is playing a double game.
US officials have long been pushing Pakistan to lean on Taliban leaders, who Washington says are based inside Pakistan, to bring them to the negotiating table. Pakistani officials deny offering safe havens to the Afghan Taliban and say their influence on the group has waned over the years.
In November 2018, Trump said Pakistan doesn’t “do a damn thing” for the United States despite billions of dollars in US aid. He defended cutting aid to Islamabad and also suggested Pakistani authorities knew Osama bin Laden’s location prior to his killing by US troops in a raid inside Pakistan in 2011.
Khan hit back by saying the United States should not blame Pakistan for its failings in Afghanistan.
“Both [PM Imran and President Trump] are important personalities, [and both are] deeply interested in [establishing] peace and stability in the region,” foreign minister Qureshi said.
Speaking about recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities, one on tankers off the UAE coast and another drone attack on pumping stations, Qureshi said: “Pakistan had stood by [the kingdom] whenever it was threatened and will continue to do so.”
Progress in Afghan peace may lead to Trump-Khan meeting — Pakistan foreign minister
Progress in Afghan peace may lead to Trump-Khan meeting — Pakistan foreign minister
- Says breakthrough in US-Taliban negotiations not a precondition for meeting but would create ‘favorable’ environment
- Pakistan will continue to stand by Saudi Arabia if it is threatened, Qureshi reiterates
Pakistanis at remote border describe scramble to leave Iran
- Returning Pakistani nationals recount missile fire in Tehran, transport gridlock as people rush to exit Iran
- PM Sharif condemns targeting of Iranian leader as embassies urge citizens to leave amid escalating strikes
TAFTANT, Pakistan: Pakistani nationals hauled suitcases across the border from neighboring Iran, describing missiles being launched and travel chaos as they scrambled to leave the country after the US and Israel launched strikes over the weekend.
AFP journalists saw a steady trickle of people passing through large metal gates at the remote border crossing between Iran’s Mirjaveh and Taftan in Pakistan’s western Balochistan province.
Powerful explosions have rocked Iran’s capital Tehran since Saturday, with embassies from countries around the world telling their citizens to leave.
“All our Pakistani brothers who were in Tehran and other cities had started to leave and were arriving at the terminal, which caused a lot of crowd pressure,” 38-year-old trader Ameer Muhammad told AFP on Monday.
“Due to the crowds, there were major transport problems.”
The isolated Taftan border lies around 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Balochistan’s capital and largest city, Quetta.
AFP journalists saw the Iranian flag flying at half-mast as soldiers stood guard.
Most people wheeled bulky luggage over the frontier’s foot crossing, while freight lorries formed a long line.
Irshad Ahmed, a 49-year-old pilgrim, told AFP he was staying at a hostel in Tehran when he saw missiles being fired nearby.
“There was an army base near the hostel, and we saw many missiles being fired,” he said.
“After that, we went to the Pakistani embassy so that they could evacuate us from there. They brought us here safely.”
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a “violation” of international law.
“It is an age old convention that the Heads of State/Government should not be targeted,” Sharif wrote on X.
The “people of Pakistan join the people of Iran in their hour of grief and sorrow and extend the most sincere condolences on the martyrdom” of Khamenei, he added.
A teacher at Tehran’s Pakistani embassy, who gave his name as Saqib, told AFP: “Before we left, the situation was normal. The situation was not that bad.”
The 38-year-old said the strikes on Tehran on Saturday “pushed us to leave the city.”
“The situation became bad on Saturday night, when attacks caused precious lives to be lost,” he said.
