washingtonpost.com: U.S., Afghan and Pakistani Officials Open Security Talks

U.S., Afghan and Pakistani Officials Open Security Talks

By April Witt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 18, 2003; Page A21

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 17 -- Senior U.S. diplomats and military leaders met with representatives from Afghanistan and Pakistan in Islamabad today to begin a series of talks on terrorism, border security and other mutual concerns.

The gathering -- the first meeting of a new tripartite commission -- comes as attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan are increasing. U.S. military and Afghan officials often blame the attacks on terrorists based over the border in Pakistan.

"There are concerns on the Afghan government's part about renegade active Taliban members who feel free to organize, and to cross borders, and to wage some type of guerrilla warfare to try to destabilize this government," said Omar Samad, spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry.

Afghanistan "used to be run almost entirely by a terrorist organization," Samad said. "Tens of thousands of people went to training camps in this country. Not all of them were captured. Not all of them died. So you still have remnants of terrorist organizations in the region and beyond. This war on terrorism is still on."

Several Taliban fighters killed by Afghan government forces during a recent battle in Kandahar province carried Pakistani identification cards and mobile phones, Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said last week.

President Hamid Karzai recently said he was certain that the suicide bomber who killed four German peacekeepers in the capital city of Kabul was not from Afghanistan.

No concrete decisions emerged from the meeting, but delegates agreed to meet regularly for as long as it takes to solve common problems, said Samad, a member of the Afghan delegation.

"There was discussion about our desire for security in this region of the world, our desire to make sure we have a common understanding about what our shared security concerns and hopes are," Samad said.

"In general terms we want to live in a region that is stable . . . and where there are no threats from terrorists to people's lives."