March 22, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 2, 1428

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UNITED NATIONS, March 21: Expressing hope that Afghanistan and other stakeholders concerned will fulfil their responsibilities to address multiple challenges within Afghanistan, Pakistan on Tuesday said "political expediency and occasional frustrations over failure must not be allowed to wreck the cooperative framework that has been established".

Addressing a UN Security Council's meeting on Afghanistan, Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram declared: "Pakistan wants friendly relations with Afghanistan. Our destinies are inextricably bound together. We respect each other’s sovereignty, we treat Afghanistan with equality and we would wish that both countries would respect each other’s territorial integrity."

"Pakistan will continue to extend its cooperation to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan and combat terrorism in all its forms."

Mr Akram pointed out: "We have advocated this approach of peace, reconciliation and development on the Afghanistan side as well. Similar agreements could be reached, through local jirgas. They can offer a modality to establish relative, if not complete peace, in the south and southeast of Afghanistan. This was the essence of the understanding at the tripartite summit in Washington last September to promote the convening of jirgas."

He told the council that "the first meeting of the Pakistan and Afghanistan Jirga Commissions was held last week in Islamabad. The two sides agreed to stop the blame game and increase cooperation to address common problems of border control and refugee repatriation."

On the need for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, Mr Akram said: "We are also working with the United States for the establishment of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZ) in the tribal areas."

"Pakistan's private sector is investing in industry and manufacturing in these areas. The US has promised special tariff and duty-free access to the US market for products from these areas. We ask the European Union to provide similar access. Similar ROZs could be established on the Afghan side as well. Pakistan stands willing to coordinate with Afghanistan to promote the creation of such zones.”

"Pakistan believes there is a need to rapidly develop the areas on both sides of the border. For development of our tribal areas, we are grateful to the United States' commitment of $750 million over the next 5 years. We would like to seek greater help from other sources as well for this vital objective," he added.

Earlier, the senior United Nations envoy to Afghanistan called on both the international community and the war-torn country’s government to increase efforts to promote reconstruction and bring lasting stability to the “place of hope and challenge”.

Given the conflict in the south of the country and militarily vulnerable borders in the east and southeast, “the threat to peace has not diminished,” secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan Tom Koenigs told the Security Council in an open meeting.