NATO praises Pakistan for Afghan cooperation
Foreign Desk Report

MONS (Belgium)—NATO’s military commander, US General James Jones, praised Pakistan’s cooperation in trying to prevent fighters illegally crossing its border into Afghanistan.
Jones said meetings between NATO and Pakistani officials had been promising and that he hoped they could help stem the flow of Taliban-allied fighters and drug runners into southern Afghanistan, where NATO is battling a major insurgency.
“I was very impressed by Pakistani military willingness to engage with ISAF (the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force) and NATO to open up a series of bilateral meetings,” Jones said at his headquarters in Mons, Belgium. He said he hoped the cooperation could lead to a “less uncontrolled flow of people through the border”.
“We are working well together,” said the general, who retires next month. He added: “This is still a developing relation, at both political and military level.” The former Taliban regime — ousted by a US-led coalition five years ago for harbouring Osama bin Laden — and its supporters among drug runners and warlords, has been waging a tenacious insurgency against NATO. Pakistan has come under increasing pressure to put an end to the flow of fighters moving in and out of the tribal areas along its border with Afghanistan. On September 5, the Pakistani government signed a truce with pro-Taliban militants in the North Waziristan tribal agency on Afghanistan’s eastern border. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has lauded the peace deal as the smartest way to combat the insurgency in the mountainous border region but NATO has been watching developments to see if it will be effective.
Under the deal, Pakistan released dozens of detained tribesmen, returned confiscated weapons and agreed to dismantle checkpoints in North Waziristan. The rebels pledged to end targeted killings and cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. “The Talibanisation problem is not only an Afghan problem but also a regional problem and something that both countries have to work on,” Jones noted.
Agencies add: Painting a grim picture of increased Taliban violence, growing illegal drug production and fragile State institutions in Afghanistan, the head of last week’s Security Council mission to the strife-torn country warned that it faced becoming a failed State unless the international community fully supports the Afghan recovery effort.Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima led the 10-member mission from 11-16 November, during which it first held talks with high-level Pakistani Government officials in Islamabad before travelling on to Afghanistan and meeting with President Hamid Karzai and other officials in the capital Kabul, as well as in the north and south.
“Over the course of 2006… and this is a worrying development, the rise in the Taliban-led insurgency and the other social ills, including the upsurge in illegal drug production and trafficking, against the backdrop of still too weak, fragile State and provincial institutions… and the accompanying endemic corruption and impunity,” Mr. Oshima told the Council, while presenting his findings during the visit.
“At the same time, it is abundantly clear that Afghanistan needs additional and sustained support and assistance from the international community, both for quick gains and for sustained progress over the long term,” he said, warning that “without such support, there is no guarantee that Afghanistan… will not slide back into conflict and a failed State again.”
The UNSC mission to Afghanistan was the first in three years, the last one being in 2003, and throughout the visit Mr. Oshima stressed the 15-member body’s continued commitment to the country’s recovery, and in particular the importance of the Afghan Compact – a five-year blueprint for reconstruction that was signed in February at a conference in London. “It is important to stress the two cardinal points: that the commitment of the international community for support of Afghanistan remains firm and sustained; and that the Afghan Compact, owned and led by Afghans, is and will remain the best strategic framework for cooperation between the Afghan Government and the international community.”