Khawaja Asif to leave for Beijing on Friday

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif leaves for Beijing on Friday at the conclusion of the three-day Envoys Conference, which wraps up today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He has been invited by his Chinese counterpart Wang Li, at a time when Beijing stressed that it saw this visit as an “important event between the two friendly countries which would further help implement the cooperation consensus reached between the two leaders”.

Announcing his visit, Geng Shuang, the spokesperson at the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, “A range of issues” will be discussed with Wang Yi and other Chinese leaders, including discussions on bilateral relations, regional and international issues of mutual interest.”

Later, in the evening, the Foreign Office also released a brief statement saying that this will be a one-day visit, where the two sides will review the bilateral relations and regional developments, including the situation in Afghanistan.

The two foreign ministers’ meeting is of added significance as on Wednesday the Indian Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat threatened that he was not ruling out a two-front war with Pakistan and China.

"It is a myth that democracies or nuclear armed neighbours do not go to war,” he said on Wednesday. This will be Asif’s first visit as Foreign Minister while earlier in October last year as Defence Minister, he had led Pakistan’s delegation to attend a forum on security and defence with special focus on the region.

The foreign minister’s visit had been planned earlier in the wake of a policy announcement by President Donald Trump in which he had leveled grave allegations against Pakistan and threatened Islamabad if it did not take the desired steps to eliminate terrorism.

The government had decided at the time that the foreign minister’s visit to Washington would be postponed and instead visits would be undertaken to China, Russia, Iran and Turkey to present its case garnering regional support 

Later in the month, he will accompany Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session. Geng Shuang further commented, “China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic partners. The two sides have seen their relationship growing with sound momentum, frequent high-level exchanges and fruitful outcome of practical cooperation”.

He added that the visit of Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif would be another important event between the two friendly countries, which would further help implement the cooperation consensus reached between the two leaders.

Geng Shuang said the deep and practical cooperation centered on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and on promoting coordination and communication on international and regional affairs.

Of importance also is the timing of Asif’s visit, which comes at the conclusion of the BRICS summit in China in which Pakistan based terror groups were included in the joint declaration. The foreign minister welcomed the decision of China to include the name of Tehrik-i-Taliban based inside Afghanistan as one of the terrorist groups.

Separately, Khawaja Muhammad Asif telephoned Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani to reassure him that Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with Afghanistan and is prepared to work with Afghanistan in all fields, including political, economic, trade and transit, security, and others for the progress and prosperity of the two countries.

A statement from the Foreign Office quoted the minister as saying, “Pakistan supports an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process for bringing lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan”.

Earlier, when surprisingly after blaming Pakistan for all of Afghans problems, President Ashraf Ghani on the eve of Eid had reached out to Pakistan saying that both governments should hold talks to find the way forward. The foreign minister reminded Kabul that mechanisms already exist for dialogue.

"Pakistan's position in the context of Afghanistan is very clear. We want to see peace and stability in Afghanistan and for that Pakistan will contribute and play its due role in all the initiatives taken to that end. We already have bilateral, trilateral, quadrilateral and multilateral mechanisms for dialogue and interaction with Afghanistan in place. Those mechanisms should be utilised to their full potential”, the foreign minister commented. He added that during interactions, of late, both sides recognised the need for political to political, military to military and intelligence to intelligence cooperation.