USA: Bush calls dinner with presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan to ease rising tensions with Taliban resurgence

President George W. Bush aimed to ease tensions between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday (September 27) as a Taliban resurgence is pressuring all three governments. Bush has met with each leader separately in the past five days and hosted both Karzai and Musharraf in the evening for a working White House dinner. "We've got a lot of challenges facing us. All of us must protect our countries. But at the same time, we all must work to make the world a more hopeful place. And so today's dinner is a chance for us to strategize together, to talk about the need to cooperate, to make sure that people have got a hopeful future" Bush said. Karzai and Musharraf have been trading barbs over the past week, each saying the other must do more to secure the long remote border region between their countries. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in that rugged border area, but Musharraf and Karzai each claims he is in the other's country. Bush will emphasize at the dinner that the two leaders have common goals in fighting terrorism and making sure their countries are successful. Karzai has complained that Taliban fighters carrying out armed attacks inside his country are being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border.

ITN Source | September 27, 2006

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