Urging that coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan for countering terrorism needed to be improved and visa policy be liberalised, parliamentarians from both countries on Wednesday said the parliamentarians’ dialogue between the two countries should be institutionalised. This was stated in a joint declaration following dialogue between parliamentarians from Pakistan and Afghan that took place in Islamabad. The joint declaration was read out by Senator Salim Saifullah in a press conference.
The dialogue focussed on the progress on recommendations of the earlier two parliamentary dialogues, which had taken place in March and May this year in Islamabad and Kabul, respectively.
Afghan transit trade, trade and travel between Pakistan and Afghanistan, investment opportunities and prospects of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations after NATO/US forces withdrawal from Afghanistan were discussed. The dialogue has been sponsored by Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT).
Deputy Speaker National Assembly Faisal Karim Kundi and Senator Salim Saifullah co-chaired the dialogue for Pakistani, while Ishaq Gilani and Abdul Latif Pidran represented Afghanistan.
The parliamentarians gave their recommendations in the joint declaration for improving relations between the two countries. It was said that coordination on counterterrorism operations needed to be improved, apprehensions regarding terrorists’ safe havens should be addressed, parliamentary oversight on defence should be enhanced and parliamentarians should adopt their own people-oriented political approach to improve relations between the two countries. It said effective control on growth and supply of drugs was needed, border management system asked for improvement and intelligence-sharing and cooperation needed to be enhanced. The dialogue also called for visa liberalisation.
The Parliamentarians from both sides also agreed to speed up the process of getting their recommendations fully recognised by their respective governments and to ensure their recommendation emanating from interacting with each other be discussed in the both Houses of their respective parliaments.
The parliamentarians agreed that trade between the two countries should be promoted further for strengthening bilateral cooperation and technical issues in the implementation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA), such as insurance guarantees, should be resolved by mutually. They said APTTA should be extended beyond Afghanistan to Central Asian States and trade between the two countries should be promoted by providing attractive opportunities to investors from both sides.
They agreed that a mechanism for streamlining economic relations between the two countries needed to be adopted, through which Pakistan’s participation in Afghan reconstruction should be encouraged. They also called for improved rail and road links.