Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Kabul on Saturday for a daylong official visit at the invitation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss his country's role in elusive Afghan peace, officials said.
It is Sharif's first visit to Afghanistan since he assumed office in June this year.
Sharif will meet Karzai and hold in-depth consultations on all issues of common interest, including the evolving situation in the region and ways to further deepen and broaden Pakistan-Afghanistan bilateral relations in all dimensions, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Prime Minister will also meet a delegation of Afghanistan's High Peace Council (HPC), led by its chairman Salahuddin Rabbani, a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Last week, a HPC delegation traveled to Islamabad to meet the Taliban's second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was recently released from prison in Pakistan at the behest of Afghan officials. However, they were unable to meet with him as they had not yet secured the Taliban's support for the meeting.
Pakistan has been accused of dragging its feet on helping Kabul along with peace talks, but recently it has shown itself ready and willing to abide its long estranged South Asian neighbor. Islamabad has reportedly released another three Taliban commanders in accordance to requests from Kabul, which has looked to free militant leaders this year in hopes of kick-starting the peace process.
Recently, the Pakistani government freed three more senior Afghan Taliban leaders at the request of the peace council's chief who recently visited Islamabad.
"The prime minister's visit is taking place at a time when important political and security transitions are underway in Afghanistan, marked by forthcoming elections and NATO/ISAF troop drawdown during 2014," the Foreign Ministry statement said.
There are still around 100,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, out of which 48,000 are said to be American.
The Afghan security forces currently number at around 350,000 men. Their greatest deficiency, according to experts, are logistics, which is one of the reasons many are adamant about the U.S. and other coalition countries continuing to advise, train and assist the Afghan forces beyond 2014.