Imran, Ghani spar at Tashkent meeting :Shafaqna Exclusive

by Tauqeer Abbas
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On Thursday, PM Imran Khan arrived in Uzbekistan for a two-day visit to expand multifaceted bilateral cooperation to all areas of mutual interest and to discuss key regional security issues. A lot was packed into the first day of the visit as several MoUs and agreements were signed. These included a protocol on the exchange of pre-arrival information on goods moved across the state border, an agreement on transit trade, cooperation in the area of military education, and an agreement to simplify the visa process for businessmen and tourists.

Landlocked Central Asia is a market with a population of 75.3 million and the total GDP at $300 billion. The countries of South Asia have a population of about 1.9 billion with the total GDP of more than $3.3 trillion. At present, the trade turnover of the Central Asian countries with their South Asian partners has small volumes, in 2020 only $4.43 billion, which is 3.2 percent of their total foreign trade turnover. While Mr Imran Khan was accompanied by the ministers of Information and Interior, the National Security Adviser and the PM’s adviser on Trade to the moot, India sent only its Foreign Minister S Jaishankar.

However, Apart from Economy, the moot was dominated by Afghanistan’s situation. As Afghan President Ashraf Ghani repeated his customary criticism of Pakistan’s “negative role” in the Afghan peace process during his address; on his turn, Prime Minister Imran Khan hit back hard and put the record straight. He stressed that no country had tried harder than Pakistan to convince the Taliban for talks. “We have made every effort, short of taking military action against the Taliban in Pakistan, to get them on the dialogue table and to have a peaceful settlement [in Afghanistan],” Imran told the participants of the conference.

And later, during his one-on-one meeting with President Ghani, Prime Minister Imran tried to convey Pakistan’s desire for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process and a future political setup in the war-ravaged country that is acceptable to all stakeholders. As a goodwill gesture, the PM even cancelled a conference scheduled in Islamabad later this month to discuss the Afghan situation, just because Ghani so wished. This should serve as a good confidence-building measure for Kabul to respond in kind. Ghani must understand that merely blaming Pakistan for what is going on in Afghanistan is “extremely unfair” – as PM Imran put it – and is not going to serve the purpose.

PM Imran’s remarks came shortly before the two leaders were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the conference.  “President Ghani let me just say that the country that will be most affected by turmoil in Afghanistan is Pakistan. Pakistan suffered 70,000 casualties in the last 15 years. The last thing Pakistan wants is more conflict,” the premier said as he stopped reading from his written speech. It was good that Pakistani premier  cleared the air as Ghani wants to make Pakistan a perfect scape goat for his brazen failures.

Shafaqa Pakistan

pakistan.shafaqna.com

 

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