Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Advisor on Foreign Affairs, today met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during which they discussed ways to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Heart of Asia conference. Both Ghani and Aziz had arrived here last evening.
The bilateral meeting came amid Afghanistan expressing its anguish over Islamabad's not so cooperative approach towards the peace process in the war-ravaged country.
Afghan government has also been critical of Pakistan over rising terror attacks on Afghanistan by militant groups operating from Pakistani soil.
"They discussed prospects of peace, development and stability in Afghanistan," a Pakistani source said.
Ahead of the conference, Afghanistan had called terror emanating from Pakistan as the "greatest threat" to regional peace and stability and pressed for adopting a regional counter-terror framework at the Heart of Asia conference to effectively deal with terrorism.
Sartaj Aziz along with Foreign Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Slovakia called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday where the PM stressed "the need to end terrorism and violence for fostering stability, security and development in Afghanistan and our region."
The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process was launched in 2011 and the participating countries include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the United Arab Emirates.
The platform was floated to encourage security, political and economic cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours.
(With PTI inputs)
