"More people crossing into Afghanistan" 05.07.2005 NEW DELHI: Afghanistan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said on Monday that "more people" were crossing the border into his country and this was related to the increase in the number of terrorist attacks. Without being directly critical of Pakistan, he said at the India International Centre that Afghanistan needed to work with its neighbours to improve the security situation in the country. Dr. Abdullah, who called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, said that extremism and terrorism served no one's interest. According to him, the resurgent Taliban could not reverse the ongoing political process in Afghanistan. Asked whether Islamabad was part of the problem or the solution in dealing with extremist forces, Dr. Abdullah said Pakistan had launched massive operations against the Al-Qaeda in Waziristan and two attempts had been made on the life of President Pervez Musharraf. "We need to work more together," he said. Asked where Mullah Omar and Osama bin-Laden were, Dr. Abdullah said they were not in Afghanistan. "It is a 25 million dollar question that you have asked me. They are outside Afghanistan. I leave it to the audience to judge where they are." Dr. Abdullah said the resurgence of the Taliban was linked to the gaps that existed on the security and governance fronts in Afghanistan. The Taliban, he said, were taking advantage of this situation. In his opening remarks, Dr. Abdullah, once a close associate and spokesman of Ahmed Shah Masood, said three million refugees had returned to Afghanistan since a non-Taliban Government took the reins. About five million students were attending school. International help Admitting that the vast majority of the Afghan budget came from international sources, he said countries that had tried to impose their agenda on Afghanistan had failed. Dr. Abdullah pointed out that the Bonn process begun in December 2001 would come to an end with the September Parliamentary elections. He said Australia was planning to commit troops to Afghanistan while the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation had promised to provide an additional 2,000 soldiers in the run-up to the September polls. << | >> |
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