Ministers agree closer co-operation at G8 talks

The foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed today to increase cooperation after meeting with Group of Eight counterparts concerned that acrimony between the two neighbours is helping the Taliban inflict mounting losses on NATO troops and Afghan civilians.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta and his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Kasuri, said in a joint statement that they “renewed their governments’ commitment to strengthen cooperation and dialogue between their countries and governments at all levels, in particular in the field of security, refugee issues, economic development and increased contacts between civil societies.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country holds the G8 presidency, welcomed the agreement. Steinmeier helped broker the meeting with Spanta and Kasuri during a trip to both countries earlier this month.

“It is indispensable for improving the security situation in the area that Afghanistan and Pakistan cooperate better ... in protecting the borders,” Steinmeier said.

Kasuri said Pakistan had a “wide interest in peace and stability in Afghanistan,” and thanked G8 countries for the opportunity to meet with them.

“We have common commitments, common concerns and common objectives,” he said.

Other officials on hand included US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Before meeting with the Afghan and Pakistani officials, the G8 foreign ministers travelled from Berlin to the venue in nearby Potsdam aboard a high-speed train.

Rice had no comment on arrival at the station, where snipers wearing black balaclavas guarded the entrances and helicopters hovered overhead.

However, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said that “inevitably there will be discussion about Afghanistan and about burden sharing,” and about “how we continue with the whole-of-government approach that has to focus on reconstruction and development,” particularly in the country’s south.

Canadian troops serve in the south, the country’s most violent area. Some other contributors to NATO forces, such as Germany and France, restrict use of their forces to the relatively peaceful north.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf have repeatedly accused each other of responsibility for the Taliban resurgence.

Musharraf insists Pakistan is doing all it can to counter Islamic militants sheltering among sympathetic tribes in its remote border region and that Afghanistan is not matching its effort to seal the frontier with thousands of troops.

However, Karzai has accused Pakistan of using the militants to undermine his government and said putting soldiers on the border does nothing to shut down militant bases inside Pakistan.

In recent weeks, Pakistani and Afghan troops have also fought several skirmishes along a contested portion of the border.

The G8 members – Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada, Germany and the US – have held several ministerial meetings before the group’s annual summit June 6-8 in Heiligendamm.

At a meeting of security and justice ministers last week, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said they resolved to work more closely with Afghanistan’s neighbours – including Iran – to combat the Afghan drug trade.

Beyond the talks with the Pakistani and Afghan officials, the foreign ministers are to discuss Iran, Kosovo, Sudan’s Darfur region and the Middle East.

The US and key European countries are trying to narrow differences with Russia over the future of Kosovo, which has been administered by the UN since a 1999 war between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian rebels.

The UN Security Council has been divided over the issue; the US and key European countries support Kosovo’s independence, and Russia, traditionally a Serbian ally, opposes it.

Steinmeier said discussions over Kosovo “will not be easy” because the opinions of the G8 members “are not close enough together.”

Still, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said: “I think we’ll make some progress” on Kosovo.

Lavrov said that “the fate of Kosovo and the Serbian villages in Kosovo will not be decided upon in Heiligendamm, New York, or Potsdam, but through direct negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.”

Later in the day, Steinmeier, Lavrov, Rice and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were to meet in Berlin to discuss the recent escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip and parts of Lebanon.