Torkham-Jalalabad Expressway to be extended to Herat

ISLAMABAD(PAN agreed on Saturday to extend the Torkham-Jalalabad Expressway, a huge project nearing completion, to western Herat province near the Iranian border.

Steps would be initiated to lay a rail link between Peshawar and Jalalabad, according to a joint declaration issued at end of President Hamid Karzai’s two-day visit to Islamabad.

Besides promoting cooperation in trade, commerce, energy, connectivity and people-to-people contacts, they neighbours pledged to work together to eliminate the menace of militancy.

The 23-point Islamabad Declaration said the two sides noted with satisfaction the signing and ratification of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) and finalisation of modalities for its implementation.

Agreeing to enhance cooperation in financial and banking sectors, they will initiate consultations on setting up an investment company to execute joint development projects on both sides of the border.

Steps would be taken to create Special Economic and Industrial Zones and Reconstruction Opportunity Zones. Early establishment of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project was stressed.

The Foreign Office said other interested states would be consulted on creating trade transit facilitation mechanisms, which would enable the Central Asian neighbours to use overland routes through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the world.

Separately, Afghan and Pakistani interior ministers, Bismillah Khan Muhammadi and Rehman Malik, told a joint press conference that a biometric system would start operating in three weeks on the Pak-Afghan border.

mud

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