CHICAGO: Planned talks between Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were canceled at the last-minute Saturday after the Pakistan leader’s plane was delayed.

“This cancelation is due to a scheduling problem,” said Nato spokeswoman Carmen Romero, on the eve of a two-day Nato summit being held in Chicago.

“Mr Zardari’s plane was delayed” which meant the talks with the Nato secretary general could not go ahead as planned, she said.

She added that a bilateral meeting could still be held between the two men before the summit ends on Monday.

Earlier Saturday, the Nato chief urged Islamabad to back efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

Zardari was invited to the summit in Chicago amid expectations that Pakistan will lift a six-month blockade against Nato supply trucks imposed after US air strikes killed 26 Pakistani troops in November.

Nato has also pressed Islamabad to do more to prevent insurgents from taking advantage of the porous Afghan-Pakistani border region to take sanctuary inside Pakistan.

“We can’t solve the problems in Afghanistan without the positive engagement of Pakistan,” Rasmussen told a policy forum here.

“We have to solve these problems,” he said, referring to the safe havens used by insurgents in Pakistan to launch attacks on Nato troops across the border.