ISLAMABAD (DNA) – Addressing an event regarding Pak-Afghan ties in Islamabad, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Janan Mosazai on Wednesday claimed that terrorists from Pakistan’s Mohmand and Orakzai agencies are joining Daesh in Afghanistan.He alleged that sixty to seventy percent members of Daesh, also known as Islamic State, came to Afghanistan from Pakistan. Mosazai asserted that this terror group poses a major threat to the region.

He further said that Afghanistan will not allow any country to be a security threat to Pakistan from its soil, this is Kabul‘s policy. India enjoys goodwill in Afghanistan as it played a significant role in building Afghan institutions, he added. He said: “We want better relations with Pakistan.”

The Ambassador said Afghanistan is grateful to Pakistan for hosting millions of Afghan refugees for over three decades. The statement comes a two days after Pakistan hosted four-country talks aimed at luring the Afghan Taliban back to the negotiating table with the Kabul government. The talks in Islamabad, announced in December, came as the Taliban’s insurgency intensifies, particularly in the country’s south, testing the capacity of Afghanistan’s overstretched military.

The delegations were led by Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan ambassador Richard Olson and China’s special envoy for Afghanistan ambassador Deng Xijun.

“The participants emphasised the immediate need for direct talks between representatives of the government of Afghanistan and representatives from Taliban groups in a peace process that aims to preserve Afghanistan’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a joint statement said after the meeting.

“The group would hold discussions on a roadmap at its next meeting to be held on 18th January 2016 in Kabul,” it said. Some analysts hope the added presence of China and the United States may help overcome mistrust between Kabul and Islamabad, though it remains unclear when the Taliban themselves will return to the negotiating table.
They are not part of this week’s talks.

“The primary objective of the reconciliation process is to create conditions to bring the Taliban groups to the negotiation table and offer them incentives that can persuade them to move away from using violence,” said Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s top foreign affairs official, as he opened the talks.

The so-called “roadmap” talks are meant to lay the groundwork for direct dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban, whose bloody insurgency shows no signs of abating more than 14 years after they were ousted from power by a US-led coalition.=DNA