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Karzai seeks to mend fences with Pak.

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD Dec. 10. In what is seen as an effort to mend fences with Pakistan, the Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, has said while a number of Taliban leaders are living in Pakistan, they do not enjoy the patronage of Islamabad. He was addressing a group of Pakistani journalists in Kabul.

There has been a sharp deterioration in relations between Kabul and Islamabad in recent weeks with allegations of cross border terrorism from senior functionaries of the Karzai administration. Pakistan was particularly piqued over what it perceived as rash statements from Mr. Karzi and his colleagues during their visits to the United States and European countries. "They (Taliban) are there like we were there in the past. I had also stayed in Pakistan then," Mr. Karzai said.

He explained that when he told a foreign media person recently about Mullah Omar being in Quetta in Pakistan, he was not making a statement of fact but only quoting a report "which we cannot confirm but which said that Mullah Omar was seen near Saleem complex in Quetta".

"We are looking for resolution. Not to hurt the feelings.... Would you want people in Quetta to be killed by sectarian violence? Bombs to explode in your cities? It is for your own good as much as it is for our own to mutually eradicate terrorism," he said.

Mr. Karzai said neither Pakistan nor India could use Afghanistan against each other. "With Pakistan, we have traditional relations, family relations, trade relations and cultural relations, so on and so forth, but with India we have country-to-country relations which is different from the kind of relations we have with Pakistan." He said that after having helped Afghanistan so much over the past 20 years, Pakistan today was agonising over its lack of influence in Kabul. "If this is so, then how could India, to whom we are not as much obliged as we are to Pakistan, influence us?"

He said the Afghan people had learnt how to protect and promote their interests, "and it is in our interest to see India and Pakistan develop normal relations. And we do not want to get ourselves involved in their fight. In our own interests, we are extremely aware of the importance of our relations with Pakistan."

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