Interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani has discussed the “challenges confronting regional peace and stability” with his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi in a meeting in Tibet on Thursday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement released on social networking platform X, stated that Jilani “underscored that challenges confronting regional peace & stability be addressed in collaborative spirit thru collective strategies”.
Jilani is in China on a two-day official visit to participate in the third Trans-Himalayan Forum for International Cooperation, being held from October 4-5.
“FM reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to further strengthen bilateral ties with Afg[hanistan],” the ministry said in the post.
The meeting comes two days after Pakistan’s caretaker government gave an ultimatum to all illegal immigrants, including Afghan nationals, to leave Pakistan by November 1 or risk imprisonment and deportation to their respective countries.
In a similar development, the Foreign Office of Pakistan today categorically rejected the impression that an ongoing operation against illegal immigrants targeted a particular nationality.
“Ongoing action envisages repatriation of individuals who have either overstayed their visas or do not have valid documents to stay in Pakistan,” said FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch at the weekly press briefing in Islamabad.
She clarified that the operation had nothing to do with the 1.4 million Afghan refugees that Pakistan had been hosting since decades with exemplary generosity and hospitality despite its own constrained economic situation.
