First review session of APAPPS today

ISLAMABAD: After a long gap, Pakistan and Afghanistan have decided to sit together for the first review session of Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS) at the Foreign Office on Monday (today).

Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood will lead the Pakistani delegation, while the Afghan side will be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Idrees Zaman. The APAPPS was established in May 2018 to provide a comprehensive and structured framework for institutional bilateral engagement between Pakistan and Afghanistan in diverse areas of cooperation.

The mechanism works through five working groups namely: politico-diplomatic; military-to-military coordination; intelligence cooperation; economic and refugees. The inaugural session of APAPPS was held in Kabul on 22 July 2018, where the two sides had agreed to synergize efforts to enhance bilateral cooperation and build trust.

"The forthcoming session will provide the two sides with an opportunity to review progress made under this framework since the inaugural session and to exchange views on further collaboration in agreed areas of cooperation," the Foreign Office announced on Sunday.