Pakistan to continue educating Afghans: envoy

KABUL in Afghanistan.

Hussain was addressing a sending-off ceremony for 600 Afghan students at the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul ahead of leaving for Pakistan to study there in leading universities.

The Afghan students would study in various disciplines like medicine, engineering, agriculture, management, computer science, economics, business administration etc under the Prime Minister of Pakistan’s Scholarship Programme for Afghan students.

Hussain said Pakistan had been sending hundreds of Afghan students each year for higher education under the scholarship programme since 2009.

He congratulated the students upon their success and advised them to focus on their studies in Pakistan and play their role, after completion of their studies, in the development of their country.

The Ambassador said Pakistan attached utmost priority to its relations with Afghanistan and had been endeavouring to work for socio-economic uplift and reconstruction of its neighbour.

He also highlighted the importance of the projects executed by Pakistan in infrastructure, education and health sectors in Afghanistan, including Liaquat Ali Khan Engineering University in Balkh, Rehman Baba School in Kabul, Allama Iqbal Faculty of Humanities at Kabul University, Sir Syed Post Graduate Faculty of Sciences at Nangarhar University,  Nishtar Kidney Centre in Jalalabad, a 400-bed Jinnah Hospital in Kabul, a 200-bed Naeb Aminullah Khan Hospital in Logar and the 73-km Torkham-Jalalabad dual carriageway.  

Responding to a volley of questions by media representatives, the Pakistani envoy termed recent visits by Pakistan’s political and military leadership to Afghanistan as highly fruitful.

He added the visits would help promote greater understanding between the two brotherly countries and were manifestation of the fact that Pakistan was sincere and serious to intensify bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan in all sectors.

He sounded optimism that the forthcoming visit of President Ashraf Ghani to Islamabad would open new vistas of cooperation in all areas of mutual interest.

pr/ma

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