By Kathy Whitehead
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Pakistan newly appointed ambassador to the United States, said this week at the U.S institute of Peace in Washington that after clearing vast tracts of land of terrorists, his government is now focused on rooting them out in urban areas.
He said his country has come a long way in the fight against terrorism and are “clearing up vast territories bordering Afghanistan, which became home to many terrorists."
“Today the entire federally administrated areas have been cleared up.”
Chaudhry said the topic of Afghanistan was extremely important to Pakistan.
"There is full consensus in Pakistan that peace in Afghanistan is absolutely imperative to Pakistan."
He said instability in Afghanistan spills over into his country and that the security situation in Afghanistan "is not encouraging. It is not good."
He said Islamabad was concerned about a number of issues pertaining to Afghanistan, one of which is that only “60 percent of territory (in the country) is under government control.”
Chaudhry went on to say Islamabad was also worried that members of terrorist groups had rebranded themselves as Daesh in Afghanistan - which is a "source of huge concern for us particularly because the Daesh concentration is in the provinces bordering Pakistan, particularly in Nangarhar."
Read the full story at TOLOnews