Pakistan peace talks lead to more Afghan attacks: NATO

This is from wiredispatch.
Karzai and his western backers must face the fact that Pakistan is more concerned with achieving some kind of peace with the tribal areas and Al Qaeda rather than losing more and more troops and civilians from terror attacks and facing more civil strife. If this means that the Taliban mount more attacks in Afghanistan Pakistan will probably not be that concerned! Now that Musharraf is out of the picture U.S. policy of a gung-ho attacks in the tribal areas is being frustrated.


Pakistan talks lead to more Afghan attacks-NATO
Jon HemmingReuters North American News Service
May 25, 2008 08:22 EST
KABUL, May 25 (Reuters) - Peace talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants have already led to an increase in insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, NATO said on Sunday.


Faced with a wave of suicide attacks, Pakistan has begun negotiations with Taliban militants who control much of the mountainous region on its side of the border with Afghanistan and thinned out the number of its troops in the area.
Whatever the results of the talks, Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud on Saturday vowed to carry on fighting Afghan and foreign forces in Afghanistan.
"We have seen increased activity in the eastern part of the country especially, which we believe can only be attributed to the de facto ceasefires and a reduction of Pakistani military activity," NATO's civilian spokesman in Afghanistan Mark Laity told a news conference.
"We respect the sovereignty of Pakistan absolutely but it's important they take into account the need to ensure that any agreements they make do not lead to an increase in violence in Afghanistan," he said.
British Defence Minister Des Browne, on a visit to Afghanistan, said he understood the agreement between Pakistan and the Taliban included an undertaking that the militants would not export violence to Afghanistan.
"Now it's the Pakistan government's responsibility to ensure that that aspect of the agreement is enforced," he told reporters. "It might be very difficult on that part of the border to enforce it, but it is their responsibility."
AFGHANS CONCERNED
Afghanistan was sending a high-level delegation to Pakistan in the coming days to voice their concerns over peace deals, said Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zaher Azimi.
"The people of Afghanistan and the government of Afghanistan are concerned regarding the announcement of Baitullah Mehsud and we hope Pakistan territory is not used against the people of Afghanistan, isn't used to kill our innocent people," Azimi said.
Previous peace deals between the Pakistani government and the Taliban all broke down in violence and merely gave the militants time to regroup, he said.
"The previous peace accords between the Pakistan government with insurgents were a golden age for the insurgents; they re-equipped, prepared and launched operations against both the government of Afghanistan and the government of Pakistan."
Afghan forces, backed by more than 60,000 foreign troops, are engaged in daily battles with Taliban militants, mostly in the south and east, the areas closest to the border with Pakistan.
Afghan officials have often accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to use Pakistani territory as a safe haven from which to direct and launch attacks and also rest and regroup.
Forty-four troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, a spokesman said, compared to 42 in the first five months of last year.
The number of ISAF troops in Afghanistan has risen from 33,400 in January 2007 to 50,838 now, the spokesman said.
More than 12,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency two years ago. (Editing by Myra MacDonald) (For a Reuters blog about Pakistan please see http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/)
Source: Reuters North American News Service