Afghan president turns down offer to visit Pakistan

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan

President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has told Pakistani civilian and military officials that he will not visit Pakistan until Afghanistan’s concerns over alleged support for cross border terrorism are resolved, according to his presidential spokesman Thursday.

Dawa Khan Menapal, deputy spokesman for the president, told Anadolu Agency the message was conveyed during a Pakistani parliamentary delegation’s visit to Kabul over the weekend. Pakistani Parliament Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had extended the invitation to Ghani to visit Pakistan.

Pakistani spy chief Lt.Gen. Naveed Mukhtar had also visited Afghanistan following the delegation’s visit.

Ghani also told visiting Pakistani officials that Afghanistan wants swift and practical steps against terrorists before any possible meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad, Menapal said.

“We have time and again informed Pakistani officials about the hideouts of militants in their cities like Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi and North Waziristan tribal region. These militants have waged some of the deadliest attacks on Afghanistan and we have demanded action against them,” the spokesman quoted the president as telling the Pakistani representatives.

Afghanistan also accuses Pakistan-based militants of carrying out the deadly attack on an Afghan army regional headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif city last month that left over 140 soldiers dead. Other attacks blamed on them include the bombing at the governor’s house in Kandahar city that led to the death of the U.A.E. ambassador and the gun-and-bomb attack on the American University of Afghanistan last year.

Meanwhile, Abdulah Abdullah, the chief executive officer of the national unity government in Kabul, is expected to visit the Pakistani capital soon.

In his efforts to establish peace in his country, Ghani visited Pakistan soon after taking oath in Sept. 2014 during which he had also visited the headquarters of Pakistani army.

The Afghan president was given a warm welcome, but the thaw in ties was short lived when Afghanistan accused the Pakistan-based Haqqani network of launching a deadly attack in Kabul that killed up to 20 civilians in August 2015.

In February this year, Kabul also handed over to Islamabad a list of 32 alleged terrorist training centers and 85 top militants allegedly based in Pakistan.