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“Karzai’s threat will not help war against terror”

— Photo: AP

Tough stand: Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a press conference in Kabul on Sunday.

ISLAMABAD: As Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai threatened to send Afghan troops into Pakistan to hunt down Taliban, the Pakistan government said while it would protect its territorial sovereignty, such statements would neither help the war against terror, nor was it in the interests of stability in the region.

The Foreign Office said that on the Afghan side of the border, the Afghan national army and coalition troops could take whatever action they wanted against the terrorists.

“On the Pakistani side of the border, it is the Pakistani troops who have the sole responsibility to take action,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Foreign Office spokesman Mohammed Sadiq as saying.

Any statement that negated this basic principle neither helped in the war on terrorism, nor promoted stability in the region, he said.

Mr. Karzai said Afghan troops would hunt down Taliban commander Beithullah Mehsud and the “other fellow”, Mullah Omar, inside Pakistan.

If the Taliban crossed over from Pakistan to launch attacks in Afghan soil, it gave Afghanistan the right to do the same, he said.

“It is a two-way road, and Afghans are good at the two-way journey,” he said.

The Pakistan government is negotiating a peace agreement with Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, where Beithullah Mehsud is based, in addition to negotiating peace agreements in other tribal areas.

In Mohamand agency area, the Taliban are reported to have walked out of peace talks accusing the government of “insincerity.”

Beithullah Mehsud, who is blamed for the killing of Benazir Bhutto, recently told journalists that the peace agreement with the Pakistan government would not stop the Taliban from crossing into Afghanistan for jihad, as Islam did not recognise any borders.

Dawn reported on Sunday that under U.S. pressure, the government has introduced a new clause in the draft peace agreement that the Mehsud tribe, including the Taliban, would not violate Pakistani and Islamic laws “within the country, across the border and abroad.”

Another new clause in the agreement requires the Mehsuds to pay up Rs. 5 million in reparations to the government. In order to pave the way for the finalising of the agreement, some of its clauses have already been implemented, such as the exchange of prisoners and withdrawal of armed forces from specified areas, which the Pakistan Army described as “a readjustment and relocation of troops.”

The agreement could be signed as early as next week if the Mehsuds accept the new clauses, Dawn said.

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