ISLAMABAD -UNS: Interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani has discussed the “challenges confronting regional peace and stability” with his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi in a meeting in Tibet on Thursday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement released on social networking platform X, stated that Jilani “underscored that challenges confronting regional peace & stability be addressed in collaborative spirit thru collective strategies”.
Jilani is in China on a two-day official visit to participate in the third Trans-Himalayan Forum for International Cooperation, being held from October 4-5.
“FM reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to further strengthen bilateral ties with Afg[hanistan],” the ministry said in the post.
The meeting comes two days after Pakistan’s caretaker government gave an ultimatum to all illegal immigrants, including Afghan nationals, to leave Pakistan by November 1 or risk imprisonment and deportation to their respective countries.
In a similar development, the Foreign Office of Pakistan today categorically rejected the impression that an ongoing operation against illegal immigrants targeted a particular nationality.
“Ongoing action envisages repatriation of individuals who have either overstayed their visas or do not have valid documents to stay in Pakistan,” said FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch at the weekly press briefing in Islamabad.
She clarified that the operation had nothing to do with the 1.4 million Afghan refugees that Pakistan had been hosting since decades with exemplary generosity and hospitality despite its own constrained economic situation.
Read more: FO says operation against illegal immigrants not targeted against particular nationality
Pakistan decided to evict illegal immigrants following an uptick in terror activities, notably in the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
In last week’s deadly bombings targeting religious gatherings at least 64 people, including children, were killed. One of the suicide bombers identified was as an Afghan national, according to interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti.
On Tuesday, Bugti made the announcement that Pakistan had set November 1 deadline for illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily or face forcible expulsion.
The following day, the ruling Taliban government of Afghanistan, while voicing concerns over Pakistan’s plan to evict hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants, said it was “unacceptable”.
Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid urged the Pakistani authorities to revisit the policy.
Fourteen of 24 suicide bombings in Pakistan this year were carried out by Afghan nationals, according to Bugti.
The interior minister pointed out that at least 1.73 million Afghan nationals had been residing in Pakistan illegally, adding that a total of 4.4 million Afghan refugees had called Pakistan home.
Islamabad has embraced the largest influx of Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of Kabul in 1979.
Pakistan has seen a rise in terrorism after the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) revoked a ceasefire with the government late last year.
