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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Sunday arrived in Kabul to meet his Afghan counterpart on a day-long visit, the Pakistani interior ministry said, amid a thaw in relations between the two neighbors.

The visit comes more than a week after Pakistani and Afghan officials held an inaugural round of the additional secretary-level talks in Islamabad to discuss trade, visas, security, connectivity and refugee issues. It followed a meeting of the

Pakistani, Afghan and Chinese foreign ministers in Beijing and the upgradation of Pakistan-Afghanistan diplomatic relations to the ambassador’s rank.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have had rocky relations mainly due to a spike in militancy in Pakistan’s western regions that border Afghanistan, following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021. Islamabad says anti-Pakistan militants carry out cross-border attacks using safe havens in Afghanistan, a charge Kabul denies. Another source of tension has been Pakistan’s drive to expel Afghans, which first began in Nov. 2023.

Upon arrival at the Kabul airport, Interior Minister Naqvi was received by Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Nabi Omari and other senior officials, the Pakistani interior ministry said.

“Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi will meet his Afghan counterpart Sirajuddin Haqqani,” it said, without elaborating on the agenda of the meeting. “Interior Secretary Khurram Agha and senior officials are accompanying him.”

This month’s additional secretary-level talks in Islamabad came in follow up of the decisions reached during the visit of Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar to Kabul in April, according to the Pakistani foreign office.

“Both sides recognized terrorism as a serious threat to regional peace and security. The Pakistani side emphasized the need for concrete actions against terrorist groups operating on Afghan soil, noting that such groups undermine Pakistan’s security and hinder regional development,” the Pakistani foreign ministry said.

“The two sides exchanged views on deepening trade and transit cooperation. They reviewed the implementation status of measures announced during the visit of Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister of Pakistan to Kabul for facilitating

Afghan transit trade, including the removal of a 10 percent processing fee, provision of an insurance guarantee, reduction in scanning and examination, and operationalization of the track and trace system.”

The Pakistani side was led by Additional Secretary for Afghanistan and West Asia, Ambassador Syed Ali Asad Gillani, while the Afghan side was led by Director-General of the First Political Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Mufti Noor Ahmad Noor.

They underlined the importance of enhanced regional connectivity as a catalyst for sustainable growth and shared prosperity.

Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said the two sides stressed the need to resolve the “issues of Afghan prisoners and refugees in Pakistan and facilitate the provision of visas to Afghan patients and businessmen.”

Pakistan this year said it wanted 3 million Afghans to leave the country, including 1.4 million people with Proof of Registration cards and some 800,000 with Afghan Citizen Cards. There are a further 1 million Afghans in the country illegally because they have no paperwork, according to officials.

“Pakistan side shared an overview of its efforts to facilitate documented travel from Afghanistan, notably through the issuance of over 500,000 visas since January 2024 to date across a range of categories such as medical, tourist, business, and study. Both sides agreed to work together to further strengthen the legal movement of individuals across borders,” Islamabad’s foreign ministry said.

Both sides assured of continued mutual communication and cooperation to address current challenges and described security as important for regional development and further strengthening bilateral relations, according to the two foreign ministries.