Mr Abdullah, who is leading an Afghan delegation for a mini-jirga (Jirgagai) in Islamabad, told Dawn he believed the present PPP-led government could work in a much better way with the Afghan government than the previous regime.
He advocated closer relationship between Kabul and Islamabad and stronger people-to-people contact for combating terrorism and extremism afflicting the two nations.
“We need to work together on the basis of realisation that terrorism will not serve anybody’s purpose nor has it served anyone’s interests in the past. We have to work against terrorists, wherever they are, whatever their origin is in order to achieve prosperity for all.”
He said: “Before coming to Islamabad I was briefed by President Karzai about his interactions with the Pakistan government and he was very optimistic about this aspect.”
Mr Abdullah, who had a detailed conversation with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at tea after the inaugural session of Jirgagai, said his confidence in Islamabad’s resolve to deal with terrorism had been reinforced during the initial contact he had with the new leadership here.
“I’m assured that this resolve will take us to where we ought to be.”
Rejecting the impression that Kabul remained involved in a blame game with Islamabad, the former minister said referring to “a fact isn’t a blame game”.
He instead suggested that a little bit of soul searching needed to be done to find out what led “us to this predicament”. Alongside this the two countries, he added, should enhance their mutual trust and confidence.
In reply to a question about the cross-border movement of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Mr Abdullah said that stopping the movement of terrorists across the porous 2500km Pakistan-Afghan border was not easy. “It is not idealistic in that sense. Both the governments need to devise a joint strategy in this regard,” he added.About the growing criticism that mini-jirga is more like a ‘talking shop’ without Taliban’s participation, Mr Abdullah said it would be difficult to have everyone represented satisfactorily, but on the broader side the Afghan delegation had sufficient representatives and had people having stake in peace and prosperity in the region.
“Having representation in the jirga of people who are trying to bring down state in Pakistan and Afghanistan is not possible,” he added.