Speaking after talks with visiting Pakistani Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz at NATO headquarters in Brussels, NATO Secretary
General de Hoop Scheffer said both sides agreed that all parties
should step up their efforts to correct things in Afghanistan.
"There is no military answer in Afghanistan. The answer in
Afghanistan reads development, reconstruction, where Pakistan also
plays a role," he told reporters.
They agree that bilateral efforts to close the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Taliban sympathizers trying to cross
the border to attack NATO and Afghan army troops, the NATO chief
said.
Aziz, the most senior Pakistani official to visit NATO
headquarters to date, met representatives of NATO's 26 member
countries on Tuesday. Discussions focused on Afghanistan, where
NATO is leading the 32,000-strong International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF).
NATO and Pakistan have shared objectives and are both committed
to a strong, stable, peaceful Afghanistan, Aziz told reporters
afterwards.
"Pakistan is committed to a strong, stable Afghanistan," said
the prime minister. "The one country that will benefit the most,
after Afghanistan itself, will be Pakistan," he said.
Aziz stressed that a strategy helping Afghan refugees in
Pakistan return to their homeland was urgently needed. There are
currently three million Afghan refugees in numerous refugee camps
in Pakistan's border area, which provide rich traipsing grounds for
terrorist recruiters.
The international community should focus on reducing drug
production in Afghanistan, which is linked to terrorism, he said,
noting that this "represents a threat for the whole world."
Highlighting the importance of Afghan economic development, Aziz
said both Pakistan and Afghanistan needed the world community's
support in terms of market access, to create jobs and to improve
the economies, contributing directly to regional peace.
Aziz said he hoped Tuesday's consultations would be the
beginning of better political dialogue with NATO.
Pakistan and NATO have been steadily increasing cooperation
since October 2005, since NATO launched a large operation to help
aid victims of the devastating earthquake that struck the
country.
Pakistani, Afghan and NATO authorities are working together in a
joint commission on military and security issues in Afghanistan.
Recently, a joint Afghan, ISAF and Pakistani intelligence center
was opened in Kabul.
(Xinhua News Agency January 31, 2007)
