Pak, Afghan officials review border monitoring

Islamabad, Sep 23: Senior Pakistani and Afghan security officials met in the southwestern Balochistan province today to discuss and reinforce the existing monitoring mechanism, aimed at checking cross-border infiltration.

Officials in Pakistan's Chaman border town said after the meeting, the two sides agreed to collectively curb cross-border infiltration.

Pakistan has already deployed over 80,000 troops on its borders with Afghanistan in the west to check the cross-border infiltration, especially by al-Qaeda terrorists and remnants of the radical Taliban.

However, Afghan officials kept on accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to checking such movements from its soil, which were aimed to carry out terrorist activities in Afghanistan. But, Pakistan, denied the charge and termed it ''nonsensical''.

The two countries had committed to further reinforce bilateral mechanisms for greater understanding in the ongoing war against terror during Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta's visit to Islamabad last July.

The issue of cross-border infiltration as well as the recent peace deal between the local Taliban and government officials in the rugged North Waziristan region, will again come up for discussion when Afghan and Pakistani Presidents meet with their US counterpart George W Bush in Washington on September 27.

Yesterday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed accusations against Pakistan while addressing the U S-based council of foreign relations in New York, claiming that Islamabad's support of militants made Afghanistan unstable.

UNI