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Pakistan, Afghanistan to share intel on Taliban

May 19, 2015

After years of tensions, Pakistan and Afghanistan have finally agreed to cooperate with each other in their fight against terrorism. The two countries are to coordinate operations against the Taliban.

https://p.dw.com/p/1FRij
Image: AFP/Getty Images/S. Marai

Pakistan's military spokesman Aseem Ali Bajwa confirmed the partnership between the two nations' intelligence services on Tuesday. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) had already been signed between the two organizations, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), Bajwa added.

There was no official information on when the deal had been signed, but it came soon after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Kabul last week (pictured above), where he promised support to the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, in his fight against the Taliban. Sharif further added that enemies of Kabul would also be seen as enemies of Islamabad.

The deal was a breakthrough after both countries accused each other for several years of using the Taliban to cause unrest in the other's respective territory. Cooperation touched an all-time low in 2001, following the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Relations between the two neighbors has improved dramatically after Ashraf Ghani took over as president of Afghanistan last year and after NATO troops rolled back their operations in the country.

mg/kms (dpa, AFP)

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