September 10, 2003	Wednesday	Rajab 12, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: Pakistan on Tuesday said it was ready to do more to pacify Afghanistan’s concern that Taliban were regrouping and organizing attacks from its territory, but urged Kabul to also take more action.

“We are prepared to do more, (but) no purpose will be served by simply asking Pakistan to do more,” Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said at a ceremony to donate some 700,000 text books to Afghanistan as a goodwill gesture.

“Sometimes we are told to do more. In fact all of us can do more... the Americans can do more and the Afghans can do more,” he said, in reference to the 10,000 US troops leading a 23-month-old international coalition of 12,500 troops hunting down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Afghan officials regularly blame attacks in their country’s restive southeast, the Taliban’s former stronghold, on militants crossing the rugged and porous border from Pakistan.

The US military in Afghanistan said on Saturday that anti-coalition forces were trying to overthrow President Hamid Karzai’s regime and re-establish a Taliban regime.

Mr Karzai on Sunday urged Pakistan to step up efforts against resurgent Taliban, who are blamed for killing scores of aid workers, soldiers and officials in recent months.

Mr Kasuri called for a greater exchange of intelligence between neighbours to curb the extremists.

He linked Afghan charges to “suspicions” arising from the neighbours’ fractious relations over recent decades, which have seen Pakistan used as a staging ground for the 1979-1989 war against occupying Soviet forces and as a shelter for more than four million Afghan refugees.

“There will be problems, there are problems because of what has happened in the last 30 years,” he said.

“Any insecurity in Afghanistan has a direct impact on Pakistan.”

Afghan ambassador Nanguyalai Tarzi deflected questions from reporters at the book handover ceremony on whether his government had proof of Taliban incursions from Pakistan.

“Security is the most important (priority) for Afghanistan... I am sure our brothers in Pakistan will do more in the future for security,” he said.

The militia’s apparent revival comes almost two years after they were ousted by a US-led military assault for harbouring Osama bin Laden.—AFP