BEIJING: China said on Monday its special envoy had spent a week mediating between Afghanistan and Pakistan and had urged an immediate ceasefire after deadly cross-border clashes flared.
South Asian neighbors Pakistan and Afghanistan have had a strained relationship for months, after dozens of people were killed in fighting in October last year.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of harboring militants from the Pakistani Taliban, who have claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan, as well as from the local offshoot of the Daesh group.
The Afghan Taliban authorities deny the charge.
Pakistan is one of China’s closest partners in the region, but Beijing also calls itself a “friendly neighbor” of Afghanistan.
