Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to stop blame game: Sartaj Aziz

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to stop blaming each other over militancy and restore trust for creating a positive atmosphere, Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said today.

Aziz visited the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday to attend a meeting of regional countries to forge greater economic cooperation for betterment of Afghanistan.

He also held meetings with President Ashraf Ghani, foreign minister and national security adviser and senior Afghan officials.

"The main thing that we both agreed upon was to restore trust, end the blame game against each other and create a positive atmosphere," Aziz told state-run Pakistan Television in an interview today about his meeting with Ghani.

Stating that blame game was hurting their relations, he said, "We will work on establishing a memorandum of trust building to avoid such a situation in the future."

He also said that Afghan foreign minister will visit Pakistan in the first week of November to attend a meeting of a joint economic commission to discuss and expand trade ties and explore ways to start stalled peace process with Taliban insurgents.

The ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan nose-dived after several attacks by Taliban rocked the government which blamed Islamabad for not doing enough to control militants.

Earlier, the relations dramatically improved since Ghani took over last year and Pakistan hosted the first-ever open talks between insurgents and Afghan government in July.

The second round of talks planned for July 31 was cancelled after confirmation of the death of Taliban's founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and a wave of attacks was launched by Taliban in Kabul, killing more than 50 people.