December 04, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 5, 1429

BRUSSELS, Dec 3: Nato expressed hope on Wednesday that Pakistan would keep up the fight against extremists on the Afghan border.

The military alliance relies on Pakistani security forces to help keep pressure on Taliban and Al Qaeda militants using its lawless tribal areas as a rear base for attacks in Afghanistan, where Nato troops are at work.

“I hope that the recent successes by Pakistan in fighting the extremists in the northwest will be sustained, in the current difficult climate,” Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters.

“Up till now, no signal or information has been received” that this is not the case, he said, after a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged Pakistan to build up its economic, political and security apparatus to confront the threat posed by terrorism around the country.

“There’s a direct threat to the integrity of the Pakistani state that is imposed by terrorism,” he said.

“It is terrorism that can come from the west, from the ungoverned areas, but it’s also a threat to the integrity of Pakistan that can come from militant groups that strike or claim common cause with Kashmir issues.”

“So building up the necessary security but also the economic and political apparatus in Pakistan is the exact counterpart to the efforts that need to be made in Afghanistan,” he said.

Miliband said such civilian support should be extended to both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Nato officials have linked the record levels of violence in Afghanistan this year to the lack of government control in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

—Agencies