US, Afghanistan to hold strategic dialogue in '07

WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) The United States will hold senior-level talks with Afghanistan next year, a senior US official said, stressing American support for Kabul as it confronts rising violence from the Islamist Taliban.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the spike in clashes and suicide bombings in Afghanistan this year did not represent a threat to President Hamid Karzai's government.

''While we've seen an increase in the number of attacks in the regions and some of the provincial cities and even in Kabul and Kandahar themselves over the past few months, we do not believe that these attacks pose a strategic threat to the central government,'' he said yesterday.

Burns, who will hold strategic talks with Karzai in Kabul in January, said the clashes also were the result of NATO and other allied troops ''taking the battle to the Taliban, along with the Afghan forces'' in southern and eastern parts of the country.

He told a conference in Washington on Afghan reconstruction that the United States would continue its support for Afghanistan in expanding security, eradicating the opium trade and fighting corruption.

Fighting, mainly in the Taliban's southern stronghold, is the worst since US-led forces drove the group from power in 2001.

More than 3,000 people have died this year, mostly rebels but including hundreds of civilians and about 150 foreign soldiers.

REUTERS SRS BD0722