UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs Dominic Raab has signaled the UK’s commitment to participate with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, as he held a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

“We do see the importance of being able to engage and having a direct line of communication,” stated Raab.

Foreign Minister Qureshi said that Pakistan upgrades its relations with the UK to a higher level, through such dialogues with the British government representatives.

He said Pakistan had made “tremendous progress” on getting out of FATF’s grey list. “We have taken legislative steps, administrative steps, and concrete steps that are being taken,” he said.

FM Qureshi further stated that he conversed Pakistan’s name on the UK’s Red List, adding “what needs to be done to take Pakistan’s name off the Red List and into the Amber List.”

The foreign minister concluded by saying that “On the whole, it was a frank and candid discussion. Thank you for coming.”

Raab stated after the foreign minister concluded his opening statement that the UK respected its historic relations with Pakistan, adding that he had a positive and productive conversation with FM Qureshi.

“We want to further strengthen our ties with Pakistan,” he said.

He acknowledged Pakistan for securely evacuating British citizens from Afghanistan.

He further added that the UK will endure delivering aid to Afghanistan on humanitarian grounds.

“We will continue to help Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, including Pakistan,” he vowed. “We want to see a prosperous Afghanistan.”

“We will be able to take the decision on excluding Pakistan’s name from the Red List on technical grounds,” he said.