ISLMABAD/ANKARA, 30 April 2007 — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai arrived here yesterday for talks on tackling the Taleban-led insurgency, news agency Anatolia reported.
The two men were due to attend a dinner later yesterday hosted by Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer followed by a formal round of talks today.
The summit is meant to ease tensions between the two leaders amid mutual allegations over the growing extremist violence on both sides of their shared 2,400 km border.
The Taleban movement was toppled from government in Afghanistan more than five years ago but is waging an insurgency that is supported by other Islamic extremists.
Karzai has been joined by some Western figures in accusing Islamabad of not doing enough to round up Taleban and Al-Qaeda leaders living in Pakistan and crack down on extremist groups training and funding militants. Islamabad meanwhile says it has taken effective measures and accuses Afghanistan of shifting the blame onto Pakistan for its own failures.
The meeting is expected to ease friction and develop a joint strategy on fighting the Taleban insurgency. Mutual recriminations have clouded relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, both key US allies in the fight against terrorism.
Musharraf has repeatedly stressed that Pakistan, once the main backer of the Taleban regime, has deployed 90,000 troops in the tribal areas and set up more than 1,000 military check posts along the 2,500-km frontier.
Earlier yesterday, Musharraf said that the war against terrorism would continue and the terrorists would be hounded until end.
Musharraf made the remarks while talking on phone to Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, who was the prime target of Saturday’s suicide attack in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.
