Talks with Taliban loom over Pakistani-Afghan summit

An Afghan policeman stands in front of the shopping mall, where Taliban gunmen battled security forces for hours, as the government forces restored control after the attack in Kabul January 18, 2010.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan will seek closer cooperation in the fight against militants during a summit in Istanbul on Monday, but a plan to reach out to Taliban insurgents will likely dominate the talks.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari meet ahead of a London conference where Afghanistan and the international community are set to agree a framework for the Afghan government to take responsibility for its own security.

The two men were due to hold talks on the sidelines of a summit with Turkey, which has been working behind the scenes to repair relations between Islamabad and Kabul, notably over negotiations with the Taliban.

Pakistan has long played an important role in Afghan affairs, having nurtured the Afghan Taliban during the 1990s, but Kabul remains suspicious that Islamabad is pursuing its own agenda in the country to the detriment of Afghanistan.

Masood Khalili, Afghanistan's ambassador to Turkey, told state news Anatolian the aim of the meeting was to "forge cooperation that might lead to reconciliation in the region. Everybody in the region is thirsty for peace."

Karzai, under intense pressure from his Western backers to strengthen Afghanistan's security forces at a time of worsening violence, is preparing a programme to reintegrate some Taliban insurgents in order to encourage them to lay down arms.

Pakistan is seeking to play a role in that process. The Foreign Ministry said on Saturday it was reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban in a bid to encourage peace in its neighbor.

Signaling NATO was open to a political solution even as U.S. President Barack Obama sends an extra 30,000 U.S. troops, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said he hopes increased troop levels will weaken the Taliban enough that its leaders will accept a peace deal and bring the war to an end.

"As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there's been enough fighting," Stanley McChrystal said in an interview in the Financial Times on Monday.

Karzai met Turkey's President Abdullah Gul, whose country has increased its diplomatic role in the Muslim world since the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party took power in 2002. Gul was to hold separate talks with Zardari later.

Military and intelligence officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan -- which have a history of mutual distrust -- were attending the talks.

REGIONAL PLAYERS

Obama has emphasized that success would not be possible in Afghanistan without the support of Pakistan.

On Tuesday Turkey is hosting a meeting of Afghanistan's neighbors on Tuesday to seek a common approach to the conflict.

British officials say they want to persuade regional players to work together to help stabilize Afghanistan.

Turkey has said the foreign minister of China and officials from Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan will attend as well as British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and U.S. Special envoy Richard Holbrooke's deputy, Paul Jones.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler; Editing by Myra MacDonald)