Visits of American officials to Pakistan amid tension between Islamabad and Kabul.
Three senior US officials are going to make separate trips to Islamabad from today to this weekend, according to official sources in Islamabad, during these visits, the latest developments in Afghanistan and bilateral relations between the United States and Pakistan will be discussed.
Giulietta Valls-Noys, the US Special Assistant on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, will arrive in Islamabad today for a 4-day visit. Tom West, the United States special envoy for Afghanistan affairs, will also arrive in Islamabad on Thursday to meet with Pakistani officials, and the third trip will be related to Elizabeth Horst, the US deputy assistant secretary of state, who will also meet with Pakistani officials next Saturday.
Diplomatic sources told the Pakistani Express Tribune newspaper that the back-to-back visits of American officials to Islamabad indicate their concern over the decisive decision of the Islamabad government to deport Afghan nationals and that the Americans are seeking to ensure that those vulnerable Afghans are not deported. 25 thousand people have been announced and all of them are now living in Pakistan and are waiting to be transferred to third countries including America and England.
It is stated in this report: 25,000 Afghan citizens along with their family members who worked for foreign forces in that country, Western embassies and other international organizations before the Taliban took control of Kabul, have fled to Pakistan, and according to the claims of the United States and European parties, they are supposed to be transferred to their countries.
The visit of American officials to Pakistan is carried out in a situation where this country is still deporting illegal Afghan nationals, and this situation is due to Islamabad’s complaint against Kabul for non-cooperation in suppressing elements of the terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and at the same time the anger of the Afghan Taliban from the decision of the Islamabad government. against the nationals of that country has caused the escalation of tensions between the two countries.
Earlier, the Pakistani authorities defended their government’s decision to take action against all illegal foreigners in Pakistan, the majority of whom are Afghan nationals, and emphasized that the deportation of illegal foreigners has nothing to do with the case of legal asylum seekers or people who are on the official list of the Organization’s Refugee Agency. Nations are located, and Pakistan will continue to host official refugees, including from Afghanistan.
At the same time, Mumtaz Zahra, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, announced that Islamabad and Washington will discuss a wide range of issues and the agenda of these negotiations is not limited to Afghanistan.
The sources said: While the visit of the US Assistant Secretary of State will focus on the issue of refugees, the agenda of US Special Representative Tom West will be on the general situation in Afghanistan, especially the current state of relations between Islamabad and Kabul.