The Taliban’s acting commerce minister said he had asked Pakistan to help return the assets of expelled Afghans and discussed ways to overcome Afghanistan’s stalled banking sector transactions during a four-day visit to Islamabad this week.
Acting minister Nooruddin Azizi’s arrival in Islamabad marked the first public visit by a senior Taliban official since Pakistan announced its policy to deport thousands of undocumented Afghans and other foreign citizens after Nov 1.
It comes just a week after caretaker prime minister said its expulsion plan was a response to the unwillingness of the Taliban-led administration to act against militants using Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Pakistan.
The Taliban have said the security issues are a domestic matter for Islamabad and called on Pakistan to stop deportations.
Azizi said a major focus of the visit had been raising the problem of Afghan deportees being unable to return their assets from Pakistan. He said that the Afghan embassy’s charge d’affaires in Islamabad and Pakistan’s foreign office would work on a “detailed roadmap” on how the assets could be returned but said it would take time.
“This is not a matter of 10 people or 100 people, this is a matter of 1.7 million people,” Azizi said.
