Pak: Clerics' delegation to visit Af for dialogue

Islamabad: A delegation of Pakistani clerics will travel to Afghanistan this week to hold talks with Afghan officials to end the cross-border hostility in southwestern Chaman border region, authorities said on Sunday.

The four-member delegation will hold meetings with officials from the Afghan ministry of defence and key Taliban leaders in Kandahar and Kabul, the Chaman district administration was quoted as saying by The News International newspaper.

They added that the Pak-Afghan border security forces' flag meeting has been postponed upon the departure of the delegation.

Pakistan on Friday summoned the Afghan charge d'affaires here to condemn the recent incidents of "unprovoked" cross-border shelling by Afghan troops near the Chaman border crossing that have escalated tensions between Islamabad and Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

At least one person was killed and 11 others were wounded on Thursday when Afghan Taliban forces fired mortars toward civilians in the Chaman-Spin Boldak area in the restive Balochistan Province. The latest violence follows a series of deadly incidents and attacks that have strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban rulers in recent months.

Thursday's violence was the second incident of firing in less than a week after a similar attack on December 10 had killed seven civilians.

Earlier this month, Pakistan's Embassy in Kabul came under gunfire in an attack that was later claimed by the Islamic State group. Pakistani officials at the time had called the incident an attack on its envoy

there.