This comes after Kabul was hit by a spate of deadly attacks in the past 10 days
President Ashraf Ghani would not take a phone call from Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi who had phoned in connection with the spate of recent attacks in Afghanistan.
A credible source confided to Pajhwok Afghan News that the Pakistan prime minister sought to share his sympathies over the telephone with Ghani after three deadly attacks in the capital.
However, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Omar Zakhilwal has denied media report claiming that Ashraf Ghani reportedly refused to take a condolence phone call Pakistan’s Prime Minister.
This comes after Kabul was hit by a spate of deadly attacks in the past 10 days which killed nearly 150 people and wounded hundreds more.
However Ghani had sent a delegation to Islamabad to hand over evidence related to recent attacks in Kabul to be shared with the Pakistan Army.
The delegation, comprising of Afghanistan Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and National Directorate of Security [NDS] chief, has come with a message from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
The NDS head and interior minister would ask Gen Bajwa and Mukhtar to hand over the perpetrators of the assaults to Afghanistan, according to the official, who did not want to be named.
Increased militant violence in Afghanistan has fueled Kabul’s tensions with Islamabad amid accusations insurgents used sanctuaries in Pakistan to plot recent suicide bombings, with the help of the country’s spy agency, ISI.
Pakistani authorities condemned the terrorist attacks and rejected the Afghan charges as unfounded and emphasized the need for “a credible investigation” into the attacks.
Earlier Pakistan’s Foreign Office announced that Pakistan handed over more than two dozen suspects belonging to the Taliban and their affiliated Haqqani network to Afghanistan last year.
However, with Dr Omar Zakhilwal expressing surprise over the news, it seemed that even he was not aware of the move.
The Afghan ambassador took to the Twitter and said if this indeed happened, it would be a huge step forward in Pakistan and Afghanistan mutual bilateral relations.