World News | Pakistan's Special Representative to Afghanistan Resigns

Islamabad, Mar 1 (PTI) Pakistan's Special Representative for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq on Wednesday resigned from his post, citing personal reasons.

“After serving close to three years as Pakistan's Special Representative for Afghanistan, I have requested the government that the time has come for me to move on and focus on my personal pursuits - family, books, and agriculture/environment,” he tweeted.

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His resignation comes a week after he travelled to Kabul as part of a high-level delegation led by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and comprising ISI chief Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum, Foreign Secretary Asad Majid and Pakistan's chargé d'affaires in Afghanistan Obaid Nizamani.

Sadiq expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other stakeholders for their unwavering support during his tenure as the special representative.

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He also acknowledged the efforts of his colleagues, who worked tirelessly to improve the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"I deeply appreciate the hard work of many of my colleagues who spent long hours to make the Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship work," he further said.

Sadiq was a career diplomat who served as Pakistan's ambassador to Kabul from 2008 to 2014, during which he played a pivotal role in removing mistrust between non-Pashtun parties in Afghanistan.

Being a Pashtun from the Swabi area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sadiq is believed to be instrumental in Pakistan's efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table in 2018, following a request from former US President Donald Trump.

His resignation comes when relations between the Afghan Taliban's interim government and Pakistan are in the doldrums due to the lukewarm response by the former to help Islamabad tackle the threat posed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence since peace talks between the TTP and the government began to falter last year. The TTP formally ended the ceasefire on November 28 and since then 58 attacks have been claimed by the group in which 170 people died.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)