Rice in Afghanistan for talks

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Kabul today for talks with president Hamid Karzai on Afghanistan’s political progress and the international military campaign to quell Taliban-led violence in the south.

Rice flew in from neighbouring Pakistan. Her trip follows criticism by Karzai last week of the US-assisted coalition anti-terror campaign in his chaotic country.

The Afghan president deplored the deaths of hundreds of Afghans, including militants, in a continuing US-led offensive across southern Afghanistan and appealed for more help for his government.

Afghan-Pakistan relations have also been tense over Kabul’s claims that Islamabad has not done enough to control the border region separating them.

Rice was making back-to-back visits to the neighbouring countries, who are among Washington’s closest allies in the war on terror.

While Rice was in Islamabad yesterday, Pakistan defended its anti-terror record and challenged Afghanistan to identify terrorist hideouts that Afghan officials claim exist in Pakistan.

“Our view is that we have two good friends and two fierce fighters in the war on terror,” Rice said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, following talks with Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf became an unlikely ally of the administration of US President George Bush following the September 11, 2001, attacks when he pledged co-operation against terrorists who passed easily between Pakistan and the lawless Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan.

Karzai has criticised Pakistan for not doing enough to go after terrorists along the mountainous border between the two nations.

Pakistan rejects the Afghan claims and says it is doing its best to counter militants operating in the area.

Rice was scheduled to leave Afghanistan for Moscow, where she was expected to meet with counterparts from the Group of Eight industrialised nations tomorrow, when the topic was expected to be Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.