BEIJING: Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan agreed to strengthen theanti-terrorism security cooperation and continue their alliance in fightingterrorism, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday in astatement on its website.

According to the Chinese foreign ministry,Chinese Vice Foreign MinisterKong Xuan You, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai, and Pakistan’sForeign Secretary Tamina Janjua co-chaired the meetingon Monday.

During the second round of the trilateral strategic dialogue between thethree countries’ deputy foreign ministers, the nations “exchanged in-depthviews on political mutual trust, the process of reconciliation inAfghanistan, [and] the progress and direction of trilateral pragmatic andsecurity cooperation,“ the Chinese ministry’s statement read.

It said all the parties agreed that they considered the trilateralcooperation mechanism among Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan to be of greatimportance. The three states also said they were willing to strengthentheir communication to enhance mutual trust.

Pakistan and China mentioned that they highly appreciated theAfghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS), withAfghanistan expressing its willingness to maintain a dialogue and thepractical implementation of the action plan to promote continuousimprovement of friendly relations.

The foreign ministry further commented on how China intends to continueplaying a constructive role in improving the Pak-Afghan linkages.

“China and Pakistan appreciate the peace initiative proposed by AfghanPresident [Ashraf] Ghani and will jointly support Afghanistan in advancingthe Afghan-led [and] Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process.”

While the three nations agreed to continue well-established training andhumanities exchanges, they also prepared for a second trilateral meeting,scheduled to be held in Kabul later this year.