May 17, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 16: United States’ special envoy to the region Ronald Neumann said here on Wednesday that the United States would continue to back President Musharraf despite the fact that he had done much, but "not reached his full capacity" in dealing with terrorism and extremism.

"In fact everybody has to do more to help restore peace and stability in Afghanistan. We all need to get forward," he told a news conference after talks with senior Pakistani officials.

Mr Neumann said he had discussed with Pakistan officials, including National Security Adviser Tariq Aziz and Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan, developments in Afghanistan and ways of developing an integrated strategy to deal with terrorists and extremists.

A former US ambassador to Kabul, Mr Nuemann is visiting the region at a time when the US-led coalition is on the offensive against Taliban in Afghanistan and the blame game between Pakistan and Afghanistan has resulted in border clashes in recent weeks.

The US envoy said that the continuing instability in Afghanistan and the cross-border movement of terrorists were causing frustration among the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and the issue needed to be taken seriously by all partners in the war on terror.

He said the US would enhance the funding to Pakistan to help strengthen its Frontier Corps (FC) in order to restrict cross-border movement of militants. He conceded that the long Pakistan-Afghan border had never been completely controlled in the history by anybody.

In reply to a question, he said the partial fencing of the Pak-Afghan border required detailed technical answers for which both the countries needed to overcome their differences.

Asked why were the US administration and media suspicious about sincerity of Pakistan’s role in the war on terror, he said that his government did not think that way.

He, however, said that Pakistan and Afghanistan were facing a common enemy and this required careful handling of things.

The situation in Afghanistan, he pointed out, had improved over the past year but still "plenty of fighting" was taking place. Last year, Kandahar was the scene of heavy fighting, but now it was reasonably quiet. This year, he said, the offensive of ISAF was successful against Taliban in the Helmand province.He said that personally he did not oppose political reconciliation with Taliban as proposed by the Afghan Senate, but it should not be out of the current structure of the Afghan government.

In this regard, he referred to Prof Majaddidi who, he said, had been heading the process of reconciliation with Taliban.

He, however, made it clear that the US and the 36-nation coalition forces were not in favour of entering into any deal at all with the Taliban.

In reply to a question, he expressed regrets over civilian causalities in the offensive against Taliban, but claimed that it happened when Taliban tried to take refuge in civilian buildings.