INTERVIEW-Pakistan needs more help from U.S., Afghans
Source: Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau MUNICH, Germany, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Pakistan needs more help from the United States and Afghanistan if it is to stop the flow of unwanted Taliban militants crossing its borders, Pakistan's foreign minister said on Saturday. "Pakistan wishes to take concrete action and we need support from the Afghans and from the United States in telling us what concrete actions are required," Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told Reuters in an interview at an annual security conference in Munich. "Simply making a rhetorical appeal -- stop extremism -- if it were that simple it would have been resolved long ago in Palestine, in Lebanon and Iraq and in Afghanistan. Obviously it's more complicated." The Pakistani border with Afghanistan snakes 2,500 km (1,500 miles) through rocky mountains and across deserts, and is considered a major front line in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. With more than 4,000 people killed, last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since U.S.-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001. Most of the deaths were in provinces bordering Pakistan. Kasuri said the Afghan authorities and the United States and its allies could help make the borders more secure. Closing the numerous refugee camps which straddle the border would be a first step. "Everybody knows that those refugee camps have become the place where some of these troublemakers hide. So let them (the Afghans) take those refugees back," Kasuri said. "We are prepared to cooperate and let Europe cooperate. Let the United States cooperate in resettling them inside Afghanistan," he said. Kasuri rejected accusations that Pakistan was not doing enough on its side of the border to stop Taliban fighters. "We need to cooperate. We're on the same side. We cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan. We must win," he said. On Thursday Kasuri announced in Berlin that Pakistan would no longer pursue a policy of laying mines on parts of the border after the plan was criticised by the EU. The border area has been unsettled for a long time. During the Cold War it was a front line in the 1980s when Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the West backed Afghan holy warriors and foreign militants battling Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan.
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