ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to visit Afghanistan next week to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and focus on his administration’s cooperation with various Afghan factions to facilitate peace process between them, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

“The visit was finalized on Friday and the prime minister will travel to Kabul on November 19,” an official, who did not want to be named since an official announcement about the trip is yet to be made, informed Arab News.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had invited Khan in September when both leaders spoken on the phone. The Pakistani prime minister had reaffirmed his country’s “steadfast support to the Afghan peace process” and noted that “positive results of these efforts [had culminated] in the US-Taliban peace agreement and the commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations.”

Another Pakistani source confirmed that the PM had accepted President Ghani’s invitation and the dates of the visit “have been worked out.”

It will be Khan’s first visit to Kabul after he assumed his country's top political office in August 2018.

The Pakistani leader will travel to Kabul at a time when intra-Afghan negotiations have hit a stalemate and Afghan officials complain that the Taliban have increased attacks since the signing of the US-Taliban deal in February.

However, the Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire while insisting that the issue will be on the agenda of the negotiations with the Afghan government.

The US and Afghan officials believe Pakistan has influence over the insurgent group and can convince its top leaders to reduce violence and move toward a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Khan said on Friday that the prime minister’s adviser on commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood, would visit Afghanistan on November 16-18 to enhance bilateral trade and address issues related to transit trade.

“Look forward to the visit of PM’s Adviser on Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood to Kabul from 16-18 Nov. Expect remarkable progress in the areas of bilateral trade, transit and investment,” the envoy said in a twitter post.

Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan had signed a transit trade agreement in 1965 that was revised in 2010 to help facilitate movement of goods between the two countries.