Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: On Monday, a six-member delegation led by Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai arrived in the federal capital to hold talks with the government over the Torkham border tension and management.

Sources said that the delegation held a meeting with Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary and Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry will lead the Pakistani delegation that will hold talks with their Afghani counterparts. They added that the Pak-Afghan border management will come under discussion during the meeting between both sides. A bomb blast in a minibus in Kabul just a couple of hours before the Afghan delegation landed in Islamabad, killed 14 people and injured scores of others. Foreign Secretary expressed sadness at the act of terrorism and offered his sympathies to the relatives of the deceased in the attack.

Meanwhile, Hekmat Karzai said that he was delighted to visit Pakistan again. Tensions between both countries reached the tipping point last week when Afghan security forces and Pakistan Army traded fire along the Torkham border. Pakistan claimed Afghan security forces had begun the shelling in response to it building a security wall within its side of the border. One Pakistani major also died in the exchange of fire along the border and a couple of soldiers on both sides were injured as well.