President Asif Ali Zardari has said that destinies of Pakistan and Afghanistan were intertwined and the two countries must work together to confront shared challenges and issues. He said this during a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday. He said Pakistan had abiding interest in peace, stability and socio-economic development of Afghanistan and would continue to support every effort of the international community in this regard.
The president said Pakistan was supportive of an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process in Afghanistan. He said militancy, terrorism, narcotics trade, illiteracy with less economic opportunities were among the main issues being confronted by the two countries. To deal with them, he said the two countries must join hands, he added. The president said the goal of completely eliminating militancy and terrorism from the region would remain elusive until an enabling environment was created where the militancy was automatically defeated. Zardari said education and provision of economic opportunities would be instrumental in winning the battle of hearts and minds and weaning away youth falling into the traps of militants. He also emphasized upon the need for the two countries to focus on financial mechanism involved in funding the terrorist activities. He said there was a nexus between the large scale heroin trade and terrorism, adding that both countries must urgently cut this cord. He said equally important in this quest was to offer alternatives to the people. Zardari said the hosting of an international conference on the issue of NARCO trade later this year by Pakistan was a measure of the commitment to collectively fight the menace and to promote real time substantive cooperation for effectively addressing the issue of drug production and trafficking. Emphasizing the need for increased regional connectivity, the president said Pakistan was keen to extend Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement to the Central Asian States for promoting trade and economic relations in the region. He said as a first step, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan could sign the trilateral transit and trade agreement this year. Karzai thanked the president for the assistance being provided by Pakistan to his country. The two leaders agreed to built trust and reduce the trust deficit so that they could enhance cooperation in all the fields, including intelligence sharing.
