AT-MAZAR-E-SHARIF: Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) has organized two-day Afghanistan-Central Asia Dialogue-III in northern Balkh province to explore ways to combat terrorism and promote regional integration.
The acting Governor of Balkh province, Atta Muhammad Noor, while addressing the conference stressed on regional cooperation in fight against militancy.
He called on regional countries to join hands to restrict spread of Islamic State (IS), the Taliban, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and other terrorist groups in the region.
The chairman of the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS), Daoud Muradian, said that conflicts did not only affect countries, but cultures as well.
Participants of the conferences have expressed serious concerns over growing violence in the war-hit country, particularly over growing insurgency in northern parts of Afghanistan.
Muradian said the maleficent events had split Afghans from their neighbors in different sectors like “remote and unwitting islands”.
Kosimsha Iskandarov, a conflict studies expert at Tajikistan’s Institute of Oriental Studies, said that Afghanistan and Tajikistan have always been beside each other especially in the turbulent times that they faced during independence when Afghans came to Tajikistan. Afghans also supported their Tajik brothers and sisters when there was conflict in Tajikistan.
The speakers believed that ignoring the Taliban threats has resulted into emergence of Daesh in Afghanistan.