Afghan, Pakistani declare new trust in U.S. talks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wary neighbors Pakistan and Afghanistan have achieved a "new environment" of trust that will help their fight against a cross-border Islamist militants, Pakistan's foreign minister said on Tuesday.
The minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta met in Washington ahead of talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"There is a new environment between Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Qureshi. "The trust level, the confidence between the two countries, has increased manifold," he added.
Spanta, said relations between the neighboring states, which in the past had deteriorated to mutual blame and public bickering over responsibility for border incursions by militants, had "remarkably improved." The two spoke to reporters after meeting at a hotel.
"The Afghanistan government has confidence in the leadership in Pakistan," Spanta said after receiving an explanation and assurances from Qureshi about a new Pakistani policy for countering an insurgency in the Swat region in northwest Pakistan.
Afghan and U.S. officials have expressed unease about Pakistan's strategy for Swat, a scenic valley near Islamabad where the Pakistani army announced on Monday it had ceased operations and where the Taliban is largely in control.
Critics say the government, which has offered to instate Islamic sharia law in Swat and neighboring regions, risks encouraging militancy with policies of appeasement.
Qureshi told reporters the Swat policy represented a "local solution to a local problem" and was "not any appeasement toward militants."
He said he told Spanta in their 40-minute meeting that "there's nothing to be apprehensive about (in) this arrangement."
Their meetings in Washington follow President Barack Obama's decision last week to send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to battle Taliban insurgents, bringing U.S. forces there to 55,000 by this summer.
(Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by David Storey)
