Afghanistan’s Hazara leader in Pakistan

An influential Afghan Shia leader is visiting Pakistan where members of the minority sect are still reeling from the brutal killing of 11 Hazara coal miners, nine of whom were Afghan immigrants, earlier this month.

The visiting Afghan leader, Karim Khalili, is also an ethnic Hazara. Members of the mostly Shia community live in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Khalili’s visit is seen as part of an effort to repair the troubled relations between the two neighbouring countries in parallel with the peace talks underway in Qatar between the Afghan government negotiators and the Taleban. The warring sides are trying to find a political roadmap that would bring an end to decades of war in Afghanistan. Khalili’s visit is part of Pakistan’s policy “to reach out to political leadership in Afghanistan to forge common understanding on the Afghan peace process,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement. The leader, who was a vice-president under Afghan ex-President Hamid Karzai’s government, is also to meet Prime Minister Imran Khan. Khan travelled to Afghanistan late last year, while several senior Afghan leaders, including the head of the country’s reconciliation council Abdullah Abdullah, came to Islamabad in recent months in an effort to reset a relationship.

Meanwhile, Islamabad accuses Kabul of providing safe haven to militants in Balochistan province, as well as working with India to destabilise Pakistan.

Stakes are high for the region as the US proceeds to reduce its troop levels in Afghanistan — expected to go down to just 2,500 this month. —