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PM Nawaz Shareef

Internal security, Afghanistan under discussion at high-level huddle

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ISLAMABAD: A high-level meeting on internal security and regional issues chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif went underway in the capital on Friday.

Senior civil and military officials are in attendance, including Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, Director General Inter-Services Intelligence Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar, National Security Adviser Lt Gen Nasser Khan Janjua, Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

Earlier this month, Pakistan hosted the ‘Heart of Asia’ conference in Islamabad which aimed at promoting regional cooperation for improving connectivity and tackling security threats.

Speaking at the conference, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had said that Pakistan’s operations against militancy had “created unintended consequences, bringing about the displacement of a significant number of these [militant] groups onto our soil”.

Ghani said the Taliban, which began as an Afghan phenomena, have become a regional phenomena. “The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan launched a vicious attack on children in Peshawar for which Pakistan robustly responded. But that very response brought them onto our country.”

The Afghan president said that conflict is being driven by regional and international terror groups and called for a mechanism of regional cooperation to examine how networks of terror coordinate and co-finance, how they are linked to the criminal economy, and how they affect regional countries’ opportunities for global engagement and dialogue.

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.