ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Uzbekistan has formally invited Pakistan to participate in the International Conference on the Afghan Peace to be held in its Capital Tashkent on March 26-27, 2018.
Talking to the Dispatch News Desk (DND) news agency in Islamabad, the officials of the Foreign Office confirmed that Pakistan had received an invitation from Tashkent to attend the Conference.
Representatives from Russia, Iran, China, the United States, European Union (EU) and the United Nations are expected to attend the Conference – titled “Afghanistan – path to a peaceful future” – an initiative of Uzbekistan to bring peace in Afghanistan.
The Conference will look to finding a peaceful solution to decades of war in Afghanistan by bringing the Afghan government, the Taliban and other warring parties into direct peace talks as the initial process.
Uzbekistan believes that the choice of finding peace process remains the only solution to take Afghanistan out of decades-old civil war and all stakeholders need to sit together and find a way out to ensure better future of Afghan nation.
In a recent interview, the Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said Uzbekistan was committed to bring peace in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“The war in Afghanistan has been going on now for 40 years. It’s no wonder that it has had a destabilizing effect on the entire region and only when there is a peaceful solution there can we achieve greater regional security,” the Uzbek foreign minister said.
Earlier on February 28, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani while addressing the Second Kabul Process Conference held in the Afghan Capital asked Taliban to initiate peace talks with the Kabul government amid offering them multiple concessions, aimed at to save the war-ravaged Country.