Chairman says militants are common enemy of Pak-Afghan

ISLAMABAD – Senate Standing Committee Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed has urged to increase bilateral cooperation among Pakistan and Afghanistan to combat the terrorism, which he termed as common enemy of both countries.

He was addressing a welcoming luncheon, here at Parliament House, in honour of sixteen-member Afghan Parliamentary delegation, who currently visiting Pakistan to participate in the Pak-Afghan Parliamentary Security Dialogue. The two-day dialogue will officially start in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Mushahid is Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Security Dialogue, which was initiated for the first time between the two parliaments in October 2013, with visit of Senate Defence Committee to Afghanistan. This is now the reciprocal visit. He said that there was a paradigm shift in Pakistan's approach, bidding goodbye to notions of 'strategic depth' as well as drawing distinctions of 'good/bad terrorists'.

“Pak-Afghan relations are of paramount importance in the Pakistan foreign policy and there is a complete consciousness among all Pakistani political parties for a peaceful Afghanistan,” Mushahid said. He said that in the coming New Year more bilateral cooperation regarding security issues and military-to-military relations is expected.

“The national poet of Pakistan, Allama Iqbal, had predicted nearly eighty years ago that the peace, stability and prosperity in Asia would be interlinked with a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan,” he added. The senator referred to Allama Iqbal's poetry, in which he said that stable Afghanistan would lead the whole region to stability while strife in Afghanistan, on the other hand, would affect whole region badly.

Leader of Afghan parliamentary delegation, Senator Baz Mohammad Zurmati also spoke on the occasion and assured full support of Afghan government to root out terrorism. On behalf of Afghanistan, he also condemned the tragic incident in Peshawar, saying that the Afghan people were shocked on this brutal act of terrorism.

Leader of the House in Senate Raja Mohammad Zafar-ul-Haq, Senator Farhatullah Babar, Senator Afrasiab Khattak, Senator Haji Mohammad Adeel, Senator Zahid Khan, Senator Abbas Khan Afridi, Senator Dr Saeeda Iqbal, Senator Nuzhat Sadiq, Senator Surriya Amiruddin, Senator Colonel (Retd) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, Senator Begum Najma Hameed, Senator Rubina Khalid, Senator Khalida Parveen and others also graced the ceremony.