Germany hopes talks can help Afghan-Pakistan ties

ISLAMABAD, May 23 (Reuters) Afghanistan and Pakistan, feuding over who is to blame for an escalating Taliban insurgency, have agreed to hold talks at a G8 meeting next week, Germany's Foreign Minister said today.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, both important Western allies, have been seriously strained over the past 18 months by the intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan. They accuse each other of not doing enough to stop the violence.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts had both accepted an invitation to a Group of Eight nations foreign ministers' meeting in Potsdam, Germany on May 30.

''Without a regional approach, without engaging the neighbours of the country, we will not succeed in bringing a lasting peace to the region,'' Steinmeier, speaking through an interpreter, told a news conference with his Pakistani counterpart Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri.

Afghan and Pakistani forces clashed on their disputed border this month and 13 Afghans were killed, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said.

''It is a key factor to see that relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan improve, especially with an eye to those areas close to the border,'' Steinmeier said. ''Both neighbours have to undertake efforts to further intensify contacts,'' he said.

Steinmeier said that was the main reason he had invited the foreign ministers to the Potsdam meeting.

''I am confident we will make a small contribution to improve the dialogue and to increase confidence-building measures between both countries,'' he said.

Germany has about 3,200 troops in Afghanistan, most in the north of the country. Though peaceful compared with the south and the east, three German soldiers and six Afghan civilians were killed in a suicide bomb attack in the north last week.

REUTERS DS KN1801