TURKEY: Pakistani President Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai arrive in Ankara for official visit

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai arrived in Ankara for two days offical visit on Sunday (April 29). The leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan will try to repair deteriorating ties and boost regional security after accusing each other of not doing enough to stop the Taliban insurgency. The talks, hosted by Turkey, which has historic ties with the region, will be the first meeting in months between two key allies in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Relations between the neighbours have deteriorated sharply over the past year, accompanied by a caustic war of words, as the Taliban's insurgency in Afghanistan has intensified. The two men attended a dinner on Sunday hosted by Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, with a second bilateral meeting on Monday morning and a luncheon with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a Pakistani embassy official in Ankara told Reuters. Musharraf criticised Karzai in an interview published on Thursday in the Spanish daily 'El Pais', accusing him of being weak on terrorism. Karzai says the Taliban is getting help from Pakistan. Pakistan denies any continued formal support for the Taliban which it helped to power in the 1990s, but the issue of cross border infiltration has soured ties between Islamabad and Kabul. The U.S. relationship with Pakistan has been under intense scrutiny for months because of growing frustration over the strength of the Taliban insurgency. Musharraf has threatened to pull out of the alliance against terrorism after persistent questioning of Pakistan's commitment and distrust of its motives. Karzai and Musharraf last met for talks in Washington in September, when U.S. President George W. Bush brought them together to try to ease tensions. About 45,000 U.S. and NATO troops are in Afghanistan battling the Taliban, mostly in ethnic Pashtun-dominated provinces on the border with Pakistan. Pakistan, which is also battling militants, says it is trying to stop infiltration into Afghanistan. But it says the real reasons behind the Taliban surge are in Afghanistan, where Pashtun tribes -- the main base of Taliban support -- have grown alienated because of indiscriminate bombings, deprivation and a lack of representation. Pakistan has deployed around 90,000 troops on the border and is fencing selective parts of the frontier.

ITN Source | April 30, 2007

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