Pakistan army chief to visit Kabul amid efforts to revive peace talks with the Taliban

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s military says its army chief will travel to Kabul on Sunday amid efforts to revive peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

In a statement released on Friday, the military says Gen. Raheel Sharif will meet with Afghanistan’s political and military leadership during the day-long visit.

The move comes two weeks after a regional conference held in Islamabad called for the resumption of Afghan-Taliban peace negotiations. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and envoys from Washington and China also attended the conference.

The first-ever direct talks between the Taliban and Kabul were hosted by Pakistan in July but the process collapsed after Afghanistan announced that longtime Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died in a Pakistani hospital two years earlier.