Afghan president arrives in Pakistan to talk security
By DPA, IANSWednesday, September 15, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad Wednesday to discuss security on the two countries’ shared border, a Pakistani official said.
During his two-day visit, the Afghan leader is to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari; Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani; and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said Intesar Sulehri, information officer at Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
Karzai, who was making his second visit to Pakistan since his re-election last year, was seeking greater support from Islamabad for a reconciliation process with Taliban militants.
Pakistan is believed to have influence on Taliban militants, mainly because it supported the emergence of the force in the mid-1990s.
The country’s intelligence agencies are suspected to have covertly assisted the Taliban after their 2001 ouster from power despite Islamabad joining an international alliance against terrorism.
Western officials have alleged that the top Taliban shura, or advisory council, operates from Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s south-western province of Balochistan, which borders the Afghan province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home and former headquarters.
