BRUSSELS
Reuters
Pakistan must play a positive role in bringing stability to Afghanistan as foreign troops prepare to leave in 2014, the head of NATO said on Tuesday, before a US-chaired meeting that will try to ease friction between often feuding neighbours.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will host talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior Pakistan officials in Brussels on Wednesday (today), with the aim of calming tension over border disputes and the stalled peace process.
“If we are to ensure long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan we also need a positive engagement of Afghanistan’s neighbours, including Pakistan,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters as alliance foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.
Wednesday’s US-chaired meeting is part of a series of on-off discussions between Afghanistan and Pakistan at the behest of the United States. Rasmussen said he would meet Karzai later on Tuesday.
Afghanistan has grown increasingly frustrated with Pakistan over efforts to pursue a peace process involving the Taliban, suggesting that Islamabad is intent on keep Afghanistan unstable until after foreign combat forces have left at the end of 2014.
US officials hope that Kerry, who has a good relationship with Karzai, can bring the parties back to the negotiating table and make constructive progress on an issue that has long-term security implications for Washington.
AFP from Kabul adds: Afghan President Hamid Karzai left Tuesday for talks in Brussels with top US and Pakistani officials aimed at reviving faltering efforts to bring peace to his country.
Karzai’s office says patience is running out with Pakistan, seen by the West as a key player in brokering peace with Taliban insurgents who have been battling the Kabul government and US-led foreign forces since 2001.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will host Wednesday’s talks between Karzai and Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, considered the most powerful man in the country, along with other senior officials on both sides.
Kerry said Monday the aim was to “try to talk about how we can advance this process in the simplest, most cooperative, most cogent way” to satisfy Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s interests and end up with ‘a stable and peaceful Afghanistan’.
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul, strained for years, appeared to make headway earlier in the year but have once again nosedived. The Taliban still refuse in public to negotiate with Karzai’s government.
“Pakistan has not taken practical measures towards the Afghan peace process so far. Afghans are running out of patience,” Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said Monday.
Afghanistan says Pakistan, which backed the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, continues to support the insurgents to counter the influence of arch-rival India.
The Pakistani foreign ministry said Monday it “remains committed to continue its positive and constructive role towards a durable peace in Afghanistan”.
Relations had improved between the countries, building up to a three-way summit hosted by Britain in February to try to find an end to the war.
But Faizi last month said Pakistan had now abandoned the peace process and imposed “impossible” preconditions on any further discussions.
Pakistan has released at least 26 Afghan Taliban prisoners in recent months — a move that Kabul welcomed in the hope that they could help persuade the Taliban to enter into peace talks.
But there is little evidence that the prisoners have done so and Kabul is now increasingly impatient that other detainees, including former Afghan Taliban deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, have not been handed over.