Pakistan Army Chief Makes Unannounced Visit to Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD: PTI Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa made an unannounced visit to Kabul on Tuesday to discuss the Afghan peace process with the Afghan leaders.

The Pakistan Embassy in Kabul on its official Twitter account released a picture of General Bajwa meeting with President Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace.

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The army chief was accompanied by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed and Pakistan’s newly appointed special envoy on Afghanistan, Muhammad Sadiq.

No details were provided by the army’s media wing of the meeting, which took place two days after US special Afghan envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with General Bajwa and the ISI chief in Islamabad on Sunday.

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The powerful army, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 70 plus years of existence, has hitherto wielded considerable power in the matters of security and foreign policy.

The top Generals’ visit to Afghanistan was apparently an effort to provide help in solving the Afghan problem by arranging intra-Afghan talks involving the Taliban and Afghan government officials, sources said.

The army chief also met Abdullah Abdullah who would lead the Afghan side in the talks with the Taliban.It was the first visit to Kabul by a high-ranking Pakistani official since Ghani began his second term in office.

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