{"id":13493,"date":"2018-09-01T12:33:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T12:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13493"},"modified":"2018-09-01T12:33:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T12:33:39","slug":"pakistan-closes-consulate-in-jalalabad-over-interference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13493","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan closes consulate in Jalalabad over ‘interference’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Islamabad, Pakistan –<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Pakistan<\/a> has temporarily closed its consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad over alleged interference by the provincial governor and a lack of security, its embassy in Kabul announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a letter sent to the Afghan foreign ministry, Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul complained that the provincial governor of Nangarhar was “intervening” in the affairs of the consulate.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Embassy has requested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan to kindly refrain the Governor from interfering in the functioning of the Consulate General,” said a statement<\/a> released by the Pakistan embassy on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pakistan also reiterated an oft-repeated request for greater security to be provided to the consulate.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the letter, the consulate will remain closed until adequate security arrangements were made.<\/span><\/p>\n

In November, a Pakistani diplomat was\u00a0shot dead<\/a>\u00a0outside his residence in Jalalabad. Last June, two Pakistani diplomats were\u00a0kidnapped<\/a>\u00a0in Nangarhar while heading to Pakistan by road.<\/span><\/p>\n

The closure of the consulate is the latest episode in a period of increasingly strained relations between the neighbouring countries who accuse each other of providing safe haven to armed fighters along the 2,600km, largely porous, border.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pakistan has made efforts to fence the border, but has faced resistance from\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>, who claims the border is disputed.<\/p>\n

In August, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan of supporting Afghan Taliban fighters who launched<\/a> a five-day assault on the Afghan city of Ghazni.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pakistani foreign office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal denied the charge, terming the complaint “spurious” and “rejecting [the] baseless allegations”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Efforts have been underway since the election of a new government in Pakistan, led by Prime Minister Imran Khan, to reset the relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a congratulatory phone call to Khan after his election, Ghani said: “We both agreed to overcome the past and to lay a new foundation for a prosperous political, social and economic future of both countries Afghanistan and Pakistan”.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a weekly press briefing on Thursday, Pakistani foreign office spokesperson Faisal reiterated that resolve.<\/span><\/p>\n

“There is a need to move forward for betterment of our relations,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Islamabad, Pakistan –\u00a0Pakistan has temporarily closed its consulate in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad over alleged interference by the provincial governor and a lack of security, its embassy in Kabul announced. In a letter sent to the Afghan foreign ministry, Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul complained that the provincial governor of Nangarhar was “intervening” in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}