Pakistan, Afghanistan to end ‘blame game’

“The gunmen stopped two vehicles, lined up all the male passengers and shot them dead”, said Jafar Haidari, the governor of Zari district in Balkh.

“The quest for peace will continue”, he said at a meeting of senior officials in Kabul, adding that there were no divisions within his coalition government on the issue.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to restore trust and end the blame game, Pakistan’s top security adviser said Saturday after holding talks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul. According to the agreement it is believed the ISI will not only train and equip Afghan intelligence, but will also jointly interrogate terror accused. But recent events have appeared to make Ghani rethink his own, some would say, uncritical outreach to Pakistan.

The government of national unity, president Ghani said, would spare no efforts to improve human rights and the status of women in society, boost local products and bring to end the culture of impunity of corrupted government officials in the country. The 2 conferences have seen intense safety measures adopted within the Afghan capital, with street closures and patrols by troopers, police and paramilitary models.

“We have planned to introduce structural reforms to take the country from an economy that was built on the consumption of foreign aid to one that is built around rising productivity through commercial investment”. The World Bank has predicted 2.5 percent GDP growth this year, after averaging 9 percent a year from 2003 to 2012.

Ghani got here to energy a yr in the past promising to convey peace and prosperity, and made pledges at a summit in London in December aimed toward reassuring donors he had reform plans that might transfer the nation away from the tradition of corruption that prevailed underneath his predecessor Hamid Karzai. Therefore, when hours after meeting Mr Aziz, President Ghani spoke of “elements in Pakistan that wanted to keep his country weak” it was clear that concerns remained. India, like the U.S., Germany and China, was represented at the functional level, said officials. The second round of talks planned for July 31 was cancelled after confirmation of the death of Taliban’s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a wave of attacks was launched by Taliban in Kabul, killing more than 50 people.

Ghani said reconstructing Afghanistan will be a “long-term endeavor”.

Sartaj Aziz, adviser to the prime minister on national security and foreign affairs, had bilateral meetings on Friday on the sidelines of the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, which were focused on ways to reduce tensions and work for restoration of mutual trust.