Daily Times

Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq is scheduled to travel to Afghanistan on Sunday on a two-day visit, along with a delegation for talks on bilateral relations including security and trade issues.

According to the sources privy to the information, Sadiq will hold talks with his Afghan counterpart Umer Daudzai,that will focus on Pakistan’s role in the peace process.

Pakistan’s envoy will also be accompanied by Security and officials related to the commerce ministries who will also hold delegation level talks with their counterparts Daudzai, who invited his Pakistani counterpart for wide-ranging talks, visited Islamabad in February for talks that focused on Pakistan’s role in the peace process and reduction in violence. Pakistani envoy’s visit to Kabu comes at a time when the peace process in Afghanistan faces a deadlock like situation in intra-Afghan negotiations as the Taliban refuse to participate in the Istanbul conference.

Besides the peace process, both sides will also touch upon security issues and matters related to trade including the new transit-trade agreement.

The 2010-transit trade agreement has been extended for three months, as both sides could not agree on a new agreement in talks in Islamabad in December.

The Pakistani envoy will visit Kabul two weeks after a nine-member parliamentary delegation, which was led by Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser to Afghanistan was postponed, after the plane carrying the parliamentarians was not allowed to land at Kabul airport due to “security reasons” and returned back.