ISLAMABAD
\nA day after Pakistan sought Afghan help to apprehend the perpetrators of a terrorist attack on Chinese engineers, the Taliban government on Friday turned down Islamabad\u2019s request, claiming Kabul had nothing to do with the March 26 incident.
\nPrime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sent an interior secretary to Kabul with a message to seek assistance from Afghanistan in the ongoing investigations into the Besham attack.
\nSecretary Interior Muhammad Khurram Agha held talks with the Afghan interim deputy interior minister and shared evidence linking the attack on Chinese engineers with Afghan territory.
\nA foreign office statement said the Afghan side agreed to examine the findings of the investigation and expressed the resolve to work with the Pakistan side to take the investigation to its logical conclusion.
\n\u201cThe Afghan side reiterated its commitment to prevent the use of their soil for any terrorist activity against other countries, including Pakistan,\u201d the statement added.
\nHowever, the spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban government rejected Pakistan\u2019s statement, saying Pakistan was trying to create distrust between Kabul and Beijing.
\nZabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, in response to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs\u2019 statement about the perpetrators of the attack on Chinese citizens in Pakistan. \u201cThis issue has nothing to do with Afghanistan and Pakistan should ensure its own security,\u201d he claimed.
\nHe further said: \u201cTargeting Chinese nationals in Pakistan is related to Pakistan and has nothing to do with Afghanistan. The report published by Pakistanis is an attempt to create distrust between China and Afghanistan. We have repeatedly denied this, and it is also illogical.\u201d
\nEarlier speaking at the weekly news briefing, foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Pakistan and Afghanistan had \u201crobust channels of communication\u201d, including regarding Pakistan\u2019s serious concerns about the terror threat that Pakistan faces from groups, which have hideouts and sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.
\n\u201cYesterday, talks were held at senior official levels and led by Secretary Interior from the Pakistani side and Deputy Minister for Interior from the Afghan side and we have been engaged with each other to ensure that the Afghan territory is not used to create trouble in Pakistan. The Afghan authorities have reaffirmed their commitment to ensure that Afghan territory will not be used against third countries including Pakistan,\u201d she added.
\nPakistan\u2019s move to seek Afghanistan assistance to apprehend the perpetrators of March 26 attack came just days before Prime Minister Shehbaz is to undertake a visit to Beijing, where security of Chinese nationals would be one of the key talking points.
\nThe foreign office on Friday officially confirmed that at the invitation of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang of the People\u2019s Republic of China, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will undertake an official visit to China from June 4-8.
\nThe visit will have three segments. Besides Beijing, the prime minister will visit the cities of Xi\u2019an and Shenzhen.
\nIn Beijing, the prime minister will meet President Xi Jinping and hold delegation-level talks with Premier Li Qiang. He will also hold meetings with Chairman, Standing Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress Zhao Leji and heads of key government departments.
\nAn important aspect of the prime minister\u2019s visit will be meetings with corporate executives of leading Chinese companies dealing in oil and gas, energy, ICT, and emerging technologies. In Shenzhen, he will address the Pakistan-China Business Forum with leading businesspersons, entrepreneurs, and investors from both countries. He will also visit Economic and Agricultural Zones in China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD A day after Pakistan sought Afghan help to apprehend the perpetrators of a terrorist attack on Chinese engineers, the Taliban government on Friday turned down Islamabad\u2019s request, claiming Kabul had nothing to do with the March 26 incident. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sent an interior secretary to Kabul with a message to seek assistance …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65625,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65597\/revisions\/65625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}