United States Vice-President Joseph Biden has blamed the Pakistani government for not putting pressure on militants to maintain security gains achieved by coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Biden is touring the war-torn country to assess efforts made by and capacity of Afghan security forces to take the overall security responsibility of the country from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) by the end of 2014.
NATO plans to transfer complete military control of the country to Afghan forces by 2014, while the Obama administration announced last month plans to begin a "responsible, conditions-based" withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in July 2011.
However, it is not sure if the situation on the ground will be conducive for NATO to end its mission, because it knows leaving the entire responsibility of the country's security with domestic forces will be risky.
The 93,000-strong Afghan police and 149,000-member defense force, lacking sufficient training and equipment, are vulnerable to thousands of Taliban insurgents operating in the country's mountainous terrains, reports say.
Addressing a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Tuesday, Biden said "more pressure on Taliban is required from Pakistani side of the border than we have been able to observe so far."
His assessment is that "we have largely arrested the Taliban momentum in some very important areas (of Afghanistan)."
Cautioning that recent military gains in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand are 'fragile and reversible,' he insisted on strengthening of local security forces and more pressure by Islamabad on Taliban militants holed up on the mountainous border terrains of Pakistan.
Biden will carry the message across the border to Islamabad on Wednesday, reports said.
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