PESHAWAR: The provincial government is making efforts to ensure the Afghan consulate in Peshawar is reopened as soon as possible, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai said on Saturday, a day after Afghanistan closed the facility in the northwestern Pakistani city.
The consulate was closed for an indefinite period on Friday to protest the removal of the Afghan national flag from a disputed property known as Afghan Market that has been in the possession of the Afghan government for several decades.
Yousafzai said the government was making efforts to ensure the speedy reopening of the consulate but did not specify what exact measures were being taken. 
“Evacuating shopkeepers from a disputed property is not that serious in nature ... and will be tackled cordially,” Yousafzai told Arab News, adding that the government was taking steps to ensure the conflict did not escalate. “Small issues should not... give weight to the outburst,” he said.

Spread over 2,500 square meters, Afghan Market is situated close to Peshawar’s famous Jinnah Park. It is estimated that Afghanistan’s national bank collects over Rs1 million ($6,380) in rent from shopkeepers working in the market every month.
On October 8, the district administration evicted 180 Afghan shopkeepers from the market and removed the country’s national flag after a contempt of court petition was filed in the Peshawar High Court by Syed Intekhab Haider Abidi, the market’s owner, seeking implementation of a 1998 judgment in his favor. The administration later handed over possession of the shops to Abidi.
In an emergency press conference on Friday, Afghanistan’s Consul General, Muhammad Hashim Niazi, demanded the suspension of the court order and announced that the consulate would be closed in protest indefinitely, adding that the raid was against diplomatic norms.
Meanwhile, a statement from Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Saturday rejected the version of events presented by Afghanistan, and said it was a private legal matter.
“The recent enforcement action by the local administration occurred after legal remedies were exhausted by the Afghan party to this legal dispute. We reject any comments casting aspersions on the judicial process in Pakistan,” the statement said, and added that Pakistan regretted the closure of the consulate.
“We hope that this step would be immediately reviewed and that a private legal case would not be allowed to adversely affect the relations between the two brotherly countries,” it said.
Yousafzai said the provincial government was constitutionally bound to implement the court’s decisions. He said the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had taken steps to strengthen bilateral ties with Afghanistan, and the Afghan government should reciprocate Pakistan’s gestures. 
“We haven’t breached any diplomatic norms as alleged,” Yousafzai said. “Rather, we have implemented the court order evacuating shopkeepers legally.”
“Imran Khan has stepped up diplomacy to mend fraught relations with regional countries including Afghanistan, but we expect Kabul to reciprocate our goodwill gesture,” the information minister added.