Pakistan, Afghanistan sign accord to share intelligence

ISLAMABAD // Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to share intelligence and carry out “coordinated intelligence operations” against militants operating along their porous border.

After years of antagonism and accusations, the spy agencies of both countries will now share information, the Pakistani military said, in another sign frosty relations between the neighbours may be gradually thawing.

Pakistan’s army spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa announced the signing of the Memoranda of Understanding between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security in a Twitter post on Monday. He did not say when the accord was signed.

The announcement came days after Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, along with the country’s army chief and the head of the ISI, visited Kabul to step up cooperation in the fight against militants.

Improved ties are key to tackling stubborn Taliban insurgencies on both sides of the border but there is a long legacy of suspicion to overcome.

Although relations have improved since Afghan president Ashraf Ghani assumed power last September, Pakistan and Afghanistan have long accused each other of sheltering militants.

Their relations nosedived after a US-led invasion toppled the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001. Pakistan long feared its arch rival India would seek to use Afghanistan against it, and felt the US invasion gave India an opening. An attack on a military-run school in Peshawar in Pakistan last December, in which Taliban gunmen killed scores of people mainly children, seems to have hastened the movement toward greater cooperation.

Both sides have toned down their rhetoric in recent months, and president Ghani has sought to reassure Pakistan that Kabul is not working with its archrival India to undermine its interests.

Considerable mistrust remains, and several Afghan lawmakers have criticised the intelligence agreement.

Ahmad Shah Ramazan, a lawmaker from northern Balkh province, called the deal “anti-Afghan”.

“Pakistan is the enemy of Afghanistan, and such an agreement with Pakistan will never be for the benefit of Afghanistan,” he said. “When it is put before the parliament for approval, it will be strongly rejected,” he said.

* Associated Press and Reuters