President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta on Friday agreed to convene a Pak-Afghan jirga, and make the initiative a frequent and effective process between the two countries.| Pak army effective or UAV effective? |
While praising Afghan hospitality during his visit to Kabul earlier this month, President Zardari said he was looking forward to welcoming his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Pakistan. Zardari said the Joint Declaration on Directions of Bilateral Cooperation, signed during his Kabul visit, provided a framework for bilateral relations in the future, adding the two sides would follow it for promoting mutual ties.
The Afghan foreign minister also met his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the Foreign Office. The two ministers expressed satisfaction over the ongoing bilateral cooperation, saying both the countries were ready to further strengthen the coordination, both at the strategic and tactical levels.
Foreign Minister Qureshi expressed the hope that the new United States government under Barack Obama would adopt a comprehensive and holistic approach in addressing the challenge of terrorism in the region. Qureshi hoped the surge in US troops' number in Afghanistan would be coupled with a political and development surge as well.