ISLAMABAD: A high-level Afghan delegation has arrived in Islamabad to attend a tripartite meeting between Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, the Afghan embassy said on Monday, adding it will also discuss trade and travel with Pakistani authorities.
Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan are members of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), an intergovernmental organization founded in 1985 to improve development and promote trade and investment opportunities.
The tripartite meeting comes days after the 16th Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit in Tashkent, at which Pakistan’s Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar urged member states to exploit untapped trade potential in the region.
The Afghan delegation is being led by Hajji Nooruddin Azizi, the Taliban administration’s minister of commerce and industry, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad said.
“A high-level delegation of Afghanistan led by Hajji Nooruddin Azizi, Minister of Commerce and Industry, has arrived in Islamabad to participate in the tripartite meeting between Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan,” it said in a statement.
“In addition, Pakistan and Afghanistan will discuss issues pertaining to bilateral trade and travel.”
The arrival of the Afghan delegation in Islamabad comes weeks after the Pakistani government announced measures to tighten control on the Afghan transit trade and imposed fees on several goods, banning the trade of more than 210 items including cloth and all kinds of tires.
Pakistani authorities have also been cracking down on undocumented migrants, mostly Afghans, that has further soured relations between the two neighbors. Pakistan began the crackdown after the expiry of a Nov 1 deadline it gave to all undocumented foreigners last month to leave the country.
Around 1.7 million, out of a total of four million, Afghans in Pakistan had no documents, according to the Pakistani government. The expulsion order followed suicide bombings in Pakistan this year that the government said involved Afghan nationals. Kabul has denied the accusation.
In an unprecedented development, Pakistan PM Kakar this month blamed Afghanistan’s interim administration for not doing enough to address Pakistan’s security concerns by clamping down on militants operating from its territory, adding there was also some evidence of “facilitation” implicating the Taliban authorities in certain cases.
The strongly worded statement by PM Kakar, which came ahead of the ECO summit in Tashkent, was the first high-profile public display of Pakistan’s discontent with Afghanistan, indicating a near-collapse of the previously cordial ties between the two countries.