Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is in Iran for bilateral talks, said at a joint press conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that peace in Afghanistan is in favor of both Iran and Pakistan and that the two countries are ready to help efforts for political settlement in Afghanistan.
He said that “the four decades of war in Afghanistan has affected Pakistan and Iran and added that Pakistan hosted at one point four million refugees and today it hots 2.7 million Afghan refugees”.
“I know that Iran also, I think you have almost three million refugees in Iran,” Khan said.
The Pakistani Prime Minister said peace in Afghanistan will benefit trade between Iran and Pakistan.
“It is in the interest of both of our countries that there is peace in Afghanistan,” Khan said. “We will cooperate with each other in helping the being a political settlement there and I know it is in the interest of both of us because if there is peace in Afghanistan, not just that people of Afghanistan who have suffered four decades, but it is also will help Pakistan and Iran in our trade.”
“Once there is peace we will have trade, employment for our people, better standard of living for our people, so we decided to cooperate on that too on helping there to be a political settlement in Afghanistan,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said they discussed issues in the region including cooperation in Afghan process.
“In terms of issues related to region, and cooperation between Iran and Pakistan towards peace and security in Afghanistan, as well as some other regional issues, we exchanged views,”
He inaccurate measures have been taken by the US in this region especially, especially as regards to Quds issue, and also in
This comes as the efforts for Afghan peace are ongoing at national and international levels. The latest development was the 16-day talks between US officials and Taliban members in Doha in mid-March in which the two sides agreed in draft on foreign forces withdrawal and counterterrorism assurances.
