KABUL, April 17: Taliban militants are still crossing the border from Pakistan to attack targets in Afghanistan and the two key US allies must boost cooperation to stop them, an Afghan spokesman said on Tuesday.
The comments come ahead of a planned meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Gen Pervez Musharraf in Turkey late this month to resolve months of bad blood over insurgency in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s problem is clear. Terrorists are crossing the border from the other side of the border and carry out sabotage operations. They’re active there, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s chief spokesman Karim Rahimi said.
This is a big problem and requires more, better and effective cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mr Rahimi told a news conference. Effective and honest efforts against the terrorists are required.
Most Afghan officials, including Mr Karzai, have long claimed that Pakistan is failing to prevent Taliban-led militants from using its soil to attack war-ravaged Afghanistan. Some even say Pakistan supports them.
Islamabad strongly denies the allegations, saying that it has 80,000 troops along the frontier and that pro-government tribesmen recently killed 300 foreign militants in a tribal border region.
We never pin accusations on anyone. Whatever we say is based on reality on the ground, whatever President Karzai says is based on reality, Mr Rahimi said.
He said the discussions in Turkey between Mr Karzai and Gen Musharraf would focus on the Taliban insurgency and on regional peace. Pakistan confirmed the talks on Monday but neither side has given a date.
In the near future there’ll be talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan to discuss the important issue of the war on terror and the establishment of peace in the region, Mr Rahimi said.—AFP
