Kabul (March 13, 2024, Kubha News) In the first working day of Muhammad Ishaq Dar as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Amir Khan Mutaqi, the acting Foreign Minister of the Taliban government, wrote him a letter, assuring him that Kabul is ready to cooperate with the new government of Pakistan in several areas.
Addressing Dar as “brother,” Mutaqi wrote, “Afghanistan and Pakistan have always had opportunities for brotherly relations. I hope that through your cooperation, our trade, transit, economic, cultural, and people-to-people relations will expand further, leading to an improvement in the situation of our people.”
Muhammad Ishaq Dar previously served as Finance Minister in the coalition government of Shahbaz Sharif between 2022 and late 2023. During his tenure, the trade issues between Afghanistan and Pakistan reached their worst, leading to the repeated closure of several trade ports, including Ghulam Khan, Spin Boldak, and Torkham, to trucks carrying goods between the two countries.
Furthermore, with the formation of a coalition government by Muslim League-N and the People’s Party of Pakistan, the Taliban leadership intensified efforts to establish relations with Islamabad.
Continuing these efforts, Obaidurahman Niazmani, the charge d’affaires of the Pakistan Embassy, went to Kandahar on Tuesday and met with Mullah Mohammad Shirin, the governor of Kandahar, and returned to Kabul with a message from the Taliban leadership.
While it’s not clear whether Niazmani traveled to Kandahar on his own initiative or was invited by the Taliban leadership and what message he received from them, the Dawn newspaper wrote that the Pakistani charge d’affaires, upon receiving this message from Kandahar, would soon go to Islamabad and deliver this message to the new Pakistani government.
Previously, Mullah Shirin Akhund, the governor of Kandahar and a close associate of Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban, traveled to Pakistan in January and met with Pakistani civilian and military officials there.
However, apparently, the Pakistani government was not satisfied with the commitment to cooperation that he had taken to Islamabad.
As Munir Akram, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, complained during a recent UN Security Council meeting about the lack of control of Pakistani Taliban by the Afghan Taliban and asked the United Nations to pressure the Taliban government to prevent TTP movements and attacks.
The Institute of Pakistan Security and Conflict Studies wrote in its latest report that nearly one hundred armed attacks took place in Pakistan in February 2024, resulting in the deaths of 87 people, including military personnel and civilians.
The expectations of the Taliban’s acting foreign minister and their leadership’s efforts in Kandahar to improve relations with Islamabad come at a time when the new cabinet of Pakistan is being formed, with the medium-term strategy to improve the financial and economic situation of the country by meeting the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Therefore, Ishaq Dar, a veteran with several years of experience in the Ministry of Finance, has been appointed as the Foreign Minister, while a banker has been appointed as the Finance Minister in this cabinet. Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a former supporter of the Afghan Taliban and a critic of their recent policies, remains in the position of Defense Minister of Pakistan.