ISLAMABAD, 11 January 2007 — Pakistan yesterday announced a new commission to organize a gathering of tribal elders from both sides of the border to try and curb the Taleban insurgency in Afghanistan.

“Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has approved the appointment of a commission for organizing and holding jirgas (tribal assemblies),” an official statement said.

A decision to hold a meeting of tribal leaders and elders in bordering areas was taken in September when Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held a joint meeting with US President George W. Bush at the White House. The Afghan leader proposed convening a jirga.

Ethnic Pashtuns living on both sides of the border have for centuries used jirgas to resolve internal disputes. “The commission shall formulate its recommendations regarding the modalities for holding of jirgas,” the statement said adding that it will liaise with a similar commission already set up by the Afghan government.

The commission will be headed by Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao and will include Governor of North West Frontier Province Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai, Governor of Balochistan Owais Ahmed Ghani, Minister for Culture Ghazi Gulab Jamal and Minister for States and Frontier Regions Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind.

Pakistan Rejects UN Charges

The government yesterday rejected a UN official’s accusations that Taleban leaders could be hiding in Pakistan, saying military forces in Afghanistan should do more to curb insurgents.

Chris Alexander, a deputy UN representative in Afghanistan, said on Monday the rebels were operating networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and urged Islamabad to do more to curb militant activities on its side of the border. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry rejected Alexander’s remarks.

“Pakistan is not solely responsible for taking action against militants and terrorists,” the ministry’s spokeswoman said.

“Capturing undesirable elements and preventing them from entering Pakistan is the responsibility of the forces operating on the Afghan side,” she said in a statement.

While Alexander called on both neighbors to end a war of words over Taleban activities, he urged Pakistan to take action against militants, particularly in Quetta. Taleban leaders run their insurgency from the southwestern Pakistani city, according to Afghanistan and its allies.

Alexander said only a handful of Taleban leaders on a UN terrorist list had been captured. The Pakistani spokeswoman rejected suggestions about the presence of Taleban leaders on Pakistani soil as “unsubstantiated.”

She said Pakistan had arrested several Taleban figures, and asked how many rebel leaders on the list had been arrested by Afghan and foreign forces operating in Afghanistan.

Ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated sharply over the past year, because of Afghan accusations that the Taleban have sanctuaries in Pakistan.

To stem the criticism, Pakistan last month announced plans to fence and mine parts of the 2,500-km long border to stem militant activities. Afghanistan is against the proposal, saying it would unfairly split ancient clan ties.

The Afghan government said yesterday it has sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to put pressure on Pakistan to abandon the plans. “In the letter Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta expressed deep concerns of the Afghan government regarding the decision of Pakistan to fence and mine parts of the Durand Line,” Afghan spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said.

Spanta also demanded that Pakistan and the international community “take serious steps to eliminate the financing, recruiting, equipping and training centers of terrorists,” Baheen said.

The letter adds that war-ravaged Afghanistan has “suffered the highest number of casualties in the world from land mines,” he told reporters.

Fencing and mining the border would also separate families straddling the border and was “not practical,” he said, repeating concerns raised by President Hamid Karzai.

Meanwhile, Pakistan yesterday opened its first biometrics system to screen travelers at a land border point with Afghanistan as a measure to curtail cross-border movement of militants, an official said. The sophisticated identification system was inaugurated at the main border crossing between southern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, near the Pakistani town of Chaman, said Brig. Akhtar Hussain Shah, an official with the government National Data and Registration Authority that issues identity cards to Pakistani nationals.

After it was inaugurated, some 40 people were screened through the system that records a person’s fingerprints, retinas or facial patterns, for identification, Shah said.