ISLAMABAD: Former Afghan warlord and Hizb-e-Islami chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar told Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad on Monday that Afghans considered Pakistan their ‘second home,’ a statement released by the foreign office said.
The Hizb-e-Islami chief is a veteran politician who twice served as Afghanistan’s Prime Minister in the 1990’s, and is on a three-day visit to Pakistan where he is expected to meet President Dr. Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“We consider Pakistan as our second home,” Hekmatyar told Qureshi during their meeting at the foreign office where Pak-Afghan bilateral relations and ongoing inter-Afghan peace talks in Afghanistan were discussed, according to the press release.
“Pakistan is sincerely playing its conciliatory role in the Afghan peace process and will continue to do so in the future,” FM Qureshi said.
“Peace and stability in the region depends on lasting peace in Afghanistan.”
He added that intra-Afghan talks provided a “rare opportunity” to the Afghan leadership to restore peace in Afghanistan.
The visit comes nearly three weeks after Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) chairman, Abdullah Abdullah’s, official trip to Islamabad.
“Pakistan has consistently supported an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process,” a foreign office statement announcing the arrival of Hekmatyar said on Sunday.
