Pakistani Chief of Army Staff surprise visit to Kabul

Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa in an unannounced visit to Kabul met with President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday

The Presidential Palace said in a statement that Pres. Ghani and Gen. Qamar Bajwa discussed the Afghan Peace process and Pakistan’s support of the process.

It comes as Khalilzad met with Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa Sunday and discussed steps required for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations.

“The two took note of recent progress created by the Eid ceasefire and accelerated prisoner releases as well as reduced violence ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations,” US Embassy in Islamabad said in a statement.

According to the statement, the two sides agreed that peace in Afghanistan offers an unprecedented opportunity to advance security, connectivity, and development

for the region.

Meanwhile, the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a video conference in Brussels reaffirms the organization’s support to the intra-Afghan talks.

“Lasting peace in Afghanistan, we can only have if there’s intra-Afghan negotiations, an Afghan-owned, Afghan-led process. And we support that,” Stoltenberg said.

“There are many problems, many reasons to be concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, but there is a huge achievement that we now have a strong Afghan security force which is able to fight terrorism themselves,” he noted.

The NATO chief added that the best way that NATO could do is to “continue to train and help the Afghan security forces so they can create peace and stability in their own country themselves.”