By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to cease a simmering blame game in a bid to ease strained ties between the two neighbors, and renew efforts to revive suspended talks between the embattled Afghan government and the Taliban.
The agreement was reached at a meeting between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistan's national security and foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz in Kabul on Friday.
"The two sides have agreed to avoid issuing hostile statements against each other for confidence building," Aziz told reporters upon his return from Kabul late Friday night.
He said he had explained to the Afghan president that anti-Pakistan euphoria in Afghanistan would disturb the efforts for reconciliation in the conflict-riddled country. He said the Afghan finance minister would visit Islamabad in November for talks on improving trade and business between the two neighbors.
The U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice and German Foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the Pakistani capital last week in a bid to push Islamabad to persuade Afghan Taliban to reviving peace talks, which the latter had suspended in July after the announcement of their longtime leader Mullah Mohammad Omar’s death. This then triggered a bitter power struggle.
This also followed a series of attacks by the Taliban in Kabul and elsewhere in the country that Afghanistan accused Pakistan of orchestrating, a charge Islamabad denied.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring Pakistani Taliban fleeing from Pakistan's North Waziristan region, among other tribal areas, because of an ongoing military operation there.
Pakistan also reportedly conveyed to the U.S. national security adviser last week that it would not be able to use its alleged influence on Afghan Taliban for revival of talks if Afghanistan continued its blame game.
