PESHAWAR - As the Durand Line reopened on Tuesday after 18 days of closure, Pakistan signaled its willingness to cooperate with Afghanistan on counter-terrorism measures.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khwaja Asif, speaking in the National Assembly, stoutly defended the government’s decision to close the border with Afghanistan,
He assailed Kabul for its failure to take action against the terrorists using Afghan soil against Pakistan. Blocking the border was Pakistan’s sovereign right, he insisted.
Earlier, some opposition members hit out at Prime Minister’s Nawaz Sharif’s government for the border blockade. They denounced the move as an unilateral act of victimising the Pakhtuns.
While Islamabad allowed entry to thousands of Afghans requiring minimum documents, but the Pakistanis were asked to produce proper documentation, the defence minister said.
Urging the opposition parties not to politicise the issue, he said the government believed peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan was interlinked. Pakistan was still ready to cooperate with Afghanistan in the war on terror, he added. (Pajhwok)