Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser has said that Pakistan fully supports Afghan led-Afghan owned peace initiative. He said that a peaceful Afghanistan was in the best interest of Pakistan and the region.
He opined that people of Afghanistan and Pakistan regardless of ethnicities are bound together by everlasting cultural, religious and historic affinities. He expressed these views in an exclusive interview with State Television on Sunday.
The Speaker said that visit of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation to Pakistan would be a milestone in cementing Pak-Afghan relations. The Speaker said that regular engagement at political and functionaries level had foiled foreign attempts to disrupt the bilateral relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said that parliamentary interaction would further augment the those relations.
Referring to the foreign aggression on Afghanistan three decades ago, the Speaker said that Pakistani wholeheartedly welcomed their afghan brethren. He said that with the advent of peace in Afghanistan, the Government of Pakistan would further facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees to their homeland.
Responding to a question, the Speaker said that he was a proponent of bringing changes in the naturalisation laws for giving national status to Afghans born and bred in Pakistan. He said that he would support a parliamentary discourse in this regard.
The Nation