British govt to host Pak-Afghan officials for meeting on 'tense bilateral relations': envoy

Afghan envoy to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal on Tuesday announced that the British government will host a high-level meeting of Pak-Afghan officials tomorrow (Wednesday) to discuss the "current tense bilateral relations" between the two countries.

Zakhilwal, who made the announcement on his official Facebook page, said that Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz would attend the meeting, alongside himself, Afghan National Security Adviser (NSA) Hanif Atmar and British NSA Sir Mark Lyall Grant.

"The meeting will focus on a mechanism for genuine Pak-Afghan cooperation on fighting terrorism, the current tense bilateral relations and the closures of crossing routes between the two countries," Zakhilwal said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when contacted, neither confirmed nor denied the Afghan envoy's statements.Tense relations

The bilateral relations between the two countries increasingly soured when Pakistan sealed its border with Afghanistan following a spate of terror attacks in February that left more than 100 people dead.

Pakistan held Afghanistan-based militant groups responsible for carrying out the attacks in the country.

The Pakistan Army later targeted militant hideouts close to the Pak-Afghan border. The army had reportedly targeted a training camp of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar -- the banned terror outfit which claimed responsibility for the Feb 13 suicide bombing in Lahore and the Feb 15 suicide attack on the headquarters of the Mohmand Agency's political administration.

The army had asked Kabul to take action against 76 Pakistani terrorists operating from Afghan territory or hand them over to Pakistan so that they could be tried for their involvement in terror-related activities.

In response, Afghanistan delivered a list of 85 Taliban and Haqqani Network leaders and 32 terror camps on Pakistani soil, which it claimed were involved in "crimes against people of Afghanistan".