Daily Times

KABUL: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stressed on Sunday the importance of fighting against the terrorist groups.

In a meeting with his Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani, he said terrorists are only terrorists, not good or bad. “There is no good or bad terrorist,” he said, adding countries should cooperate with each other to make their borders more secure and combat terrorist groups.

Zarif, who arrived in Kabul on Sunday morning to meet top Afghan officials, underlined that Tehran and Kabul should expand economic cooperation within the framework of their economic pact. He then called for further bilateral ties to finalize the question of water between the two countries which would benefit the environment in the two countries.

In addition, the Iranian foreign minister called for solving the border problems and facilitating travel of nationals between the two countries. For his part, the Afghan foreign minister appreciated Iran for hosting the Afghan immigrants and extending aid to the Afghan refugees. Rabbani underlined the importance of boosting bilateral cooperation in counter-terrorism, business and completion of Chabahar and railroad projects.

Meanwhile, the visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and the Afghan National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar discussed issues of mutual interest in Kabul on Sunday.

Zarif said in the meeting that the two countries are brothers and enjoy the same culture and need to further bilateral cooperation.

Prior to the meeting, Zarif had met the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. In the meeting, various aspects of mutual ties, expansion of relations and the latest regional and global developments were discussed. A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Bahram Qasemi, was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying that Zarif will hold talks on different aspects of Tehran-Kabul relations and the ways to promote the current level of bilateral ties as well as the latest international and regional developments during his visit to Kabul.

His visit to Afghanistan followed an official visit he made to Islamabad. The day-long visit to Pakistan took place on May 3 during which Zarif met top Pakistani officials on the recent terrorist attack near Iran-Pakistan border which resulted in killing of some Iranian border guards.

Separately, National Assembly (NA) Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Sunday, while clarifying Afghan president’s ‘rejection’ last week of an invitation to visit Pakistan, said Ghani had assured him he would visit Islamabad after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pays a visit to Afghanistan.

Speaking to the media, Sadiq, who recently led a parliamentary delegation to Kabul, explained that the Afghan president had not declined invitations extended to him by top Pakistani officials, as Ghani’s Deputy Spokesperson Dawa Khan Minapal had said last week. Minapal claimed that Ghani, after meetings with Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Naveed Mukhtar and Sadiq, had rejected their invitations, saying he would not visit Pakistan until Islamabad hands over the perpetrators of terror attacks in Afghanistan. “I will not go to Pakistan till the perpetrators behind the attacks in Mazar-i-Sharif, the American University in Kabul and the Kandahar attacks are handed over to Afghan authorities and until Islamabad takes concrete action against Afghan Taliban militants on Pakistani soil,” Minapal had quoted Ghani as saying. Sadiq, however, claimed that Ghani assured the speaker he would visit Pakistan once Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif paid a reciprocal visit to Afghanistan. The Afghan president last paid an official visit to Pakistan in Dec 2015 for the Heart of Asia moot.

The speaker said that he had invited the Afghan president to Islamabad so that relations between the two countries may improve. “It is his [Ghani’s] desire as well that relations improve and peace is established,” he added.

Sadiq told the media that during his meeting in Kabul, the Afghan president told him that 50 per cent of Afghan land is not under his control. “Ghani told us members of the militant Islamic State group and the Afghan Taliban were present just a few kilometres away from where their meeting was being held,” Sadiq told the media. Sadiq said that former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah will also be visiting Pakistan soon.