National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Sunday, clarifying Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's 'rejection' last week of an invitation to visit Pakistan, said Ghani had assured him he would visit Islamabad after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pays a visit to Afghanistan.
Speaking to the media on Sunday, Ayaz Sadiq, who recently led a parliamentary delegation during a visit to Kabul, explained that the Afghan president had not declined invitation extended to him by top Pakistani officials, as Ghani's Deputy Spokesperson Dawa Khan Minapal had said last week. Minapal claimed that Ghani, had rejected their invitations, saying he would not visit Pakistan until Islamabad hands over the perpetrators of terror attacks to Afghanistan.
"I will not go to Pakistan till the perpetrators behind the attacks in Mazar-i-Sharif, the American University in Kabul and the Kandahar attacks are handed over to Afghan authorities and until Islamabad takes concrete action against Afghan Taliban militants on Pakistani soil," Minapal had quoted Ghani as saying.
The Speaker said that he had invited the Afghan president to Islamabad so that relations between the two countries may improve. Sadiq told the media that during his meeting in Kabul, the Afghan president told him that 50 per cent of Afghan land is not under his control. He said that former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah will be visiting Pakistan soon.