UK PM’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Nigel Casey discusses in Pakistan for talks

Islamabad: The UK Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Nigel Casey, is in Pakistan for a three-day visit to Islamabad and Karachi.

Nigel Casey held meetings with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf, Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood, and Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Muhammad Sadiq to cover matters related to Afghanistan.

He discussed the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, for which the UK has already pledged £50m of funding for 2.5m Afghans, most of them women and girls, drawn from the UK’s £286 million aid commitment to Afghanistan this year. Nigel also discussed areas of mutual concern, including inclusive politics, women’s rights, and the security situation.

In addition to his discussions on Afghanistan, the Special Representative will meet business leaders in Karachi to discuss trade opportunities between the UK and Pakistan. The UK and Pakistan share strong business and people-to-people ties which are bolstered by the 1.6 million Pakistani diaspora in the UK.

Nigel Casey said: “I am grateful to Pakistan for support to our efforts to evacuate at-risk Afghans affiliated to the UK from Afghanistan.

“The UK is committed to doing everything it can to ensure stability in Afghanistan, and our policy is one of pragmatic engagement. We will continue to work together with Pakistan on matters of shared concern, including providing humanitarian support to the people of Afghanistan and to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a place where terrorism flourishes.”

The UK has doubled its humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan, which will provide urgent life-saving assistance to millions of people suffering from the conflict, drought and COVID-19. This takes the total UK aid to Afghanistan this year to £286 million, one of our largest bilateral programmes. It means the UK’s total aid contribution to the country since 2001 is now around £3.5 billion.

The new funding will build on previous support to Afghanistan which has already helped almost 10 million more children go to school compared with 2001, helped to reduce maternal mortality by more than 42%, and helped to clear more than 8 million landmines and other unexploded munitions.

This is the third UK high-level visit to Pakistan in three months, after the then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab came in September and the visit of the UK Home Office’s Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft last week. The Minister of State for South Asia and the Commonwealth Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon also visited Pakistan in June this year. HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, spoke to Prime Minister Imran Khan on the telephone last month.

Nigel Casey was appointed as the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in May 2021. He was previously the British High Commissioner to South Africa from April 2017 to May 2021. He was the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 2014-2016 and British Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2011 to 2014.