Mushahid urges increased bilateral ties between Pak, Afghan

Date : 31-12-2014

ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Defence Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed on Monday urged to increase bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan to combat terrorism, which he termed as a "common enemy of both countries".

He was addressing a welcoming luncheon at the Parliament House in honour of a sixteen-member Afghan Parliamentary delegation, who arrived in Pakistan to participate in the Pak-Afghan Parliamentary Security Dialogue. The two-day dialogue will officially start in the federal capital today (Tuesday).

Senator Mushahid is the co-chairman of the security dialogue that was initiated for the first time between the two parliaments in October 2013 with visit of the Senate Defence Committee to Afghanistan. This is now the reciprocal visit.

"There is a paradigm shift in Pakistan's approach, bidding goodbye to notions of strategic depth as well as drawing distinctions between good and bad terrorists," the committee chairman said.

"Pak-Afghan Relations are of paramount importance in the Pakistan's foreign policy and there is a complete consciousness among all Pakistani political parties for a peaceful Afghanistan," Senator Mushahid said in his address, adding that in 2015 more bilateral cooperation regarding security issues and military-to-military relations was expected.

"The national poet of Pakistan, Allama Iqbal, had predicted nearly 80 years ago that peace, stability and prosperity in Asia would be interlinked with a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan," the Senator referred to Allama Iqbal's poetry, in which he had said that a stable Afghanistan would lead the whole region to stability while strife in Afghanistan, on the other hand, would affect the whole region badly.

Leader of Afghan Parliamentary delegation Senator Baz Mohammad Zurmati also spoke on the occasion and assured full support of Afghan government to root out terrorism. He, on behalf of Afghanistan, also condemned the tragic incident in Peshawar, saying the Afghan people were shocked on this brutal act of terrorism.

Leader of the House in Senate Raja Mohammad Zafarul Haq, Senator Farhatullah Babar, Senator Afrasiab Khattak, Senator Haji Mohammad Adeel, Senator Zahid Khan, Senator Abbas Khan Afridi, Senator Dr Saeeda Iqbal, Senator Nuzhat Sadiq, Senator Surriya Amiruddin, Senator Colonel (r) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Senator Begum Najma Hameed, Senator Rubina Khalid, Senator Khalida Parveen and others also graced the ceremony.