ISLAMABAD: Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah has accepted President Arif Alvi’s invitation to visit Pakistan, Alvi’s office said in a statement on Monday, with the details of the trip yet to be finalized.
The Pakistani president said the emir of Kuwait had written a letter, expressing “satisfaction over the strong ties between Pakistan and Kuwait and reiterated his commitment to further expand relations in all fields for the mutual interest.”
Sheikh Nawaf’s letter follows Kuwait’s decision to lift a travel ban on Pakistanis in May this year.
Kuwait had suspended visas for nationals of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2011 over what it said was difficult security conditions in the five countries.
Pakistan began visa resumption talks with Kuwait in 2020, following which hundreds of nurses, doctors and medical technicians were able to travel to the Gulf state.
In May, after a meeting with Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said business and family visas for Pakistani nationals would be resumed “immediately”.
Last month, during a meeting with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi welcomed Kuwait’s relaxation of the travel restrictions.
Pakistan enjoys a long-standing fraternal relationship with Kuwait, an important Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country.
Kuwaiti emir accepts President Alvi’s invitation to visit Pakistan
https://arab.news/ppcr6
Kuwaiti emir accepts President Alvi’s invitation to visit Pakistan
- Sheikh Nawaf reiterates commitment to ‘expand relations’ between the two countries
- Kuwait lifted a decade-old travel ban on Pakistanis in May this year
Pakistan says 67 Afghan Taliban killed in border clashes
- Information Minister Tarar says coordinated attacks in Balochistan and KP were effectively repulsed
- Security official says Pakistan carried out ground and air strikes in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Tuesday it forces have killed 67 Afghan Taliban fighters in cross-border clashes in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), after what Information Minister Ataullah Tarar described as coordinated attacks on multiple locations along the frontier.
Pakistan, which has frequently blamed Afghanistan for sheltering anti-Pakistan militant groups like the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and facilitating their cross-border attacks, said it targeted militant hideouts on the other side of the frontier after repeatedly taking up the issue with the administration in Kabul.
The Afghan Taliban, who have always denied Islamabad’s charges, launched what Pakistan called “unprovoked aggression” in support of militant entities.
“Afghan Taliban resorted to physical attack on 16 locations in Northern Balochistan in Qilla Saifullah, Noshki and Chaman Districts while engaging our troops on 25 locations in fire raid,” Tarar said in a social media post.
“The attack at all the locations have been effectively repulsed with Afghan Taliban suffering 27 killed and scores injured,” he added. “One soldier of FC Balochistan North gave the ultimate sacrifice while defending the motherland while five soldiers are injured.”
Tarar reported similar hostilities in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, where a physical attack was attempted at one location and fire raids were conducted on 12 others, all of which were repulsed without Pakistani casualties.
“40 Afghan Taliban were killed in the overnight operations in KP,” he said.
A senior security official told Arab News on condition of anonymity that Pakistani forces were also conducting ground and air operations across the border in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.
The official said Pakistani forces had destroyed an ammunition depot and drone storage facility near Jalalabad and targeted the Khogani base in Nangarhar, adding that the operation against Afghanistan would continue until its objectives were achieved.
There was no immediate comment from Afghan authorities.
