NEW YORK, Sept 24: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said recent leadership change in Pakistan has offered for the “first time” a hope of winning the “war on terror” and called for a joint assault on extremist “sanctuaries” along their common border.

He also asked the United States to provide full backing to the new democratically elected administration of President Asif Ali Zardari in fighting extremism.

Relations between the neighbours were strained during Pervez Musharraf’s rule, with the Afghan leader persistently accusing Islamabad of not doing enough to curb cross-border militancy.

“For the first time, I see in the region a ray of hope,” Karzai said at a New York-based Asia Society forum on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. He said Zardari, whose wife former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide blast, would move away from what he alleged was Islamabad’s longstanding use of “radicalism and extremism as an instrument of policy”.

“If we can all work together, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and our allies, I see now possibilities of moving beyond the days where one or the other of us may need extremism or radicalism as an instrument of policy and when that happens, there would be no place for extremists to play against all of us and if that happens, there will be no extremist activity as it is now.”

Afghanistan has repeatedly accused Pakistan of clandestinely supporting Taliban rebels, which Washington and Kabul say are using tribal areas in Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan as sanctuaries.

The Afghan leader said Zardari had a “very” good understanding of the tribal region and “the need to change” the situation there. “My hope is he would have the instruments to (wage the fight against terrorism) ... the instruments means backing from the United States, first of all,” he said. Karzai also endorsed a plan voiced by his defence minister for a joint US-Afghan-Pakistani military task force that would be empowered to operate on both sides of the border. “A force to act together on two sides of the border?

“A new idea but a welcome idea, I’ll back it,” he said while answering a question.—AFP

Seeks help against sanctuaries

UNITED NATIONS: President Karzai urged Pakistan and the international community to help eliminate sanctuaries terrorists use to attack his country. “Undoubtedly, terrorism will not go away until we dismantle the elaborate institutional support terrorists enjoy in the region and eliminate their secure sanctuaries,” he told the UN General Assembly.

Mr Karzai said a spate of attacks inside Pakistan illustrated the need to work together. “Afghanistan stands ready to take several steps for each single step that Pakistan will take to address the challenge of radicalism and terrorism,” he said.—Reuters