ISLAMABAD (SW): As Pakistani shuffles its military leadership, analysts there underline the need for improvement in ties with Afghanistan.
Last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif named the new military command, appointing Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Gen Zubair Mahmood Hayat as the chief of army staff and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC), respectively, in the hope of stabilising the fragile civil-military balance.
Commenting on the development, Saeed Nazeer, a retired Brigadier in the Pakistan Army, told Salam Watandar that Gen. Bajwa should pay his maiden visit as Army Chief to Kabul to reciprocate the gesture demonstrated by the Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani following his inauguration in 2014. He underlined the need for regaining the confidence of the Kabul government for improving Pak-Afghan ties.
But, analyst Shahid Shamim has a different opinion in this regard. Shamim told Salam Watandar that no major change in the policy of Pakistan Army is in sight. He recalled Mohammad Ashraf Ghani extended a hand of friendship to Pakistan shortly after becoming President of Afghanistan but his deed was met with a rather cold respond from Pakistan. He added that Ghani associated high hopes with the former Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif but the later let him down, and it is highly likely that the new Army Chief Gen. Bajwa would carry forward the legacy of his predecessor.
It is worth noticing that Pakistan is going through rough patch in ties with both of its neighbors Afghanistan as well as India
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