The dire situation in Afghanistan is probably the largest humanitarian crisis currently unfolding in the world, and warrants an expeditious and coordinated response from the international community, said Pakistan\u2019s ambassador to Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to UN estimates, about 60%, or perhaps more, of Afghanistan\u2019s people, particularly children, are at serious risk of starvation, malnourishment, and lack access to health care and medicines,\u201d Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi said in an interview with Anadolu Agency.<\/p>\n
The looming winter season is expected to be particularly tough for Afghans, he warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are multiple factors impacting the lives of the ordinary Afghans, and this situation requires a concerted, quick, very expeditious and coordinated response from the world community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Qazi said the Afghanistan crisis will be the primary focus during a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Pakistan\u2019s capital Islamabad later this week.<\/p>\n
The OIC aims to deliver \u201ca very strong message\u201d urging the international community to work on an individual level and in cooperation \u201cto help contain the worst aspects of this crisis and to reverse it,\u201d the envoy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSignificant pledges\u201d are expected from several countries to boost efforts to mitigate the crisis, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan is not a very rich country. But given that we are the immediate neighbors of Afghanistan, we have done our utmost to help our Afghan brothers,\u201d Qazi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, in October, we sent about 550 metric tons of food. Our prime minister has recently announced packages of medicines, food and other items, worth more than $28 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
Islamabad also allowed India to use its land routes to send aid to Afghanistan, while also reducing tariffs on a number of Afghan products exported to Pakistan, the envoy added.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of this is just to show other countries what they can also do for Afghanistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
However, he stressed that aid packages can only offer Afghans fleeting moments of relief, and the country\u2019s grave situation requires comprehensive efforts by the international community for a sustainable and long-term solution.<\/p>\n
\u2018Sky\u2019s the limit for Turkey-Pakistan relations\u2019
\nOn relations between Turkey and Pakistan, Qazi said the nations have \u201cperhaps the world\u2019s best bilateral relationship between two countries that are not geographical neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Imran Khan was due in Turkey this October for a meeting of the Turkey-Pakistan High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, but the trip had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 situation, the envoy explained.<\/p>\n
Islamabad is working to reschedule the visit \u201cfairly soon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The two sides have a \u201cvery comprehensive\u201d agenda for the meeting, which will build on the Strategic Economic Framework Agreement signed during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s visit to Islamabad in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdvancing on a plan of over 70 specific actions in a time-bound manner, Pakistan and Turkey are expected to include a mechanism for bilateral engagement in the defense sector, as well as various other fields,\u201d Qazi said.<\/p>\n
He said the defense sector has emerged as another very important pillar in Turkey-Pakistan relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sky is the limit. There is no end to the kind of cooperation that can happen between real brotherly countries like Pakistan and Turkey,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n
He added that Ankara and Islamabad have almost completed a study on their bilateral trade ties, which will give new impetus to efforts to further bolster their economic relations.<\/p>\n
The trade volume between Turkey and Pakistan is currently close to $1 billion, indicating an incremental progress but \u201cnot the kind that the two countries or the two leaders would wish,\u201d the diplomat said.<\/p>\n
Qazi also pointed out that Pakistan and Turkey \u201chave a very strong tradition of helping each other on various forums on various issues,\u201d citing Turkey\u2019s stance on the Kashmir issue as an example.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilarly, Pakistan supports Turkey\u2019s position on almost all international issues, including the issue of Northern Cyprus. We call for a just and equitable solution to that problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The dire situation in Afghanistan is probably the largest humanitarian crisis currently unfolding in the world, and warrants an expeditious and coordinated response from the international community, said Pakistan\u2019s ambassador to Turkey. \u201cAccording to UN estimates, about 60%, or perhaps more, of Afghanistan\u2019s people, particularly children, are at serious risk of starvation, malnourishment, and lack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":{"id":88041,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":768,"height":384,"file":"2021\/12\/@EnayatullahAzad-NRC-2-1.jpg","filesize":80196,"sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"@ENAYATAZAD","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":88040,"source_url":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/@EnayatullahAzad-NRC-2-1.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88042,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88040\/revisions\/88042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}