ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Friday he was hopeful the acting Afghan administration would continue its diplomatic dealings with the world while meeting a high-level delegation from the neighboring country currently visiting Pakistan.

Afghanistan’s interim foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi recently arrived in Islamabad on a three-day visit along with other cabinet colleagues to discuss enhanced trade, cross-border movement, land and aviation links, and regional connectivity.

The visiting delegation held exhaustive meetings with Pakistani ministers at the foreign office in which matters of mutual interest came under discussion.

“The Prime Minister hoped that the interim Afghan government will continue to constructively engage the international community and will keep on taking positive measures to address the prevailing challenges,” said an official statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office. “He said that Pakistan has been consistently calling for provision of immediate humanitarian relief for Afghanistan.”

The statement added that Khan underscored the urgent need to release Afghanistan’s frozen assets and facilitation of banking transactions to prevent an economic meltdown.

The issue also came up for discussion during a lunch hosted by the speaker of Pakistan’s national assembly Asad Qaisar where the acting Afghan foreign minister noted it had even become difficult for the administration in Kabul to pay teachers in Afghanistan due to a lack of financial resources.

Muttaqi said at a time when the international community was concerned about the fundamental rights in Afghanistan, it was imperative that his government was given access to the country’s assets abroad to provide basic education and health services to the general public.

He maintained the Taliban government had given a general amnesty to all who had served the last government.

“We have even given guards for the protection of political leaders of President Ashraf Ghani’s regime,” he was quoted as saying in an official statement circulated by the National Assembly secretariate.

Muttaqi added that over 500,000 members of the civil services under the previous Afghan regime were also given amnesty and they were serving the people of his country under the current dispensation.

Pakistani parliamentarians expressed hope that stability in Afghanistan would contribute to greater regional trade, especially between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asian countries.