LONDON: US President George W. Bush said yesterday he understood Afghanistan’s anger at attacks by militants based on the border with Pakistan but urged talks to resolve the “testy situation.” “We can help calm the situation down and develop a strategy that will prevent these extremists from developing safe haven and having freedom of movement,” he said after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
“There can be more dialogue between the Pakistani government and the Afghan government,” said Bush. “There needs to be better cooperation.”
The US leader stopped short of endorsing Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s warning of possible cross-border strikes at militants in Pakistan but said he understood the frustration in Kabul. “It’s a testy situation there, and if I’m a president of a country and people are coming from one country to another, allegedly from one country to another, to kill innocent civilians on my side I’d be concerned about it,” said Bush.
The US leader also called for a new “jirga” or traditional council of tribal leaders in the region to tackle the issue, saying: “That’d be a good idea to restart the jirga process.”
“There’s a lot of common ground,” he said. “It’s in no-one’s interest that extremists have a safe haven from which to operate. Our strategy is to deny safe haven to extremists who would do harm to innocent people. And that’s the strategy of Afghanistan, it needs to be the strategy of Pakistan. It’s in all our interests,” he said.
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said Afghan Ambassador Anwar Anwarzai was summoned to the foreign office “and a strong protest was lodged over President Karzai’s statement.” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi condemned Karzai’s “irresponsible, threatening” comments, saying in a statement that he would “like to make it absolutely clear that Pakistan shall defend its territorial sovereignty.”
More than 2,000 tribesmen in eastern Afghanistan yesterday voiced support for Karzai’s threat. An official quoted a tribal elders as saying: “We are ready to fight the Pakistani Taleban with our own weapons and money.”
Tribal chief Amin Jan said from Sharan by telephone: “We support Karzai. Pakistanis are coming to Afghanistan and we have evidence.”
Meanwhile, some 500 Taleban massed near Kandahar city yesterday as Afghan and NATO security forces sent reinforcements after a brazen rebel attack that busted more than 1,000 prisoners out of jail. “We’re preparing to launch an operation on them soon,” said provincial police chief Sayed Agha Saqeb.
