To allay Pakistan's concerns about Indian presence in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai said in Pakistan capital Islamabad Thursday said his country would never allow its soil to be used for activities directed against any of its neighbors.
"India is a close friend of Afghanistan, but Pakistan is a twin brother of Afghanistan. We are more than twins, we are conjoined twins. There is no separation, there cannot be a separation," the visiting Afghan president said in response to a question during a joint news conference with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
At the same time, Karzai, who was on a two-day visit to Pakistan--the first since his re-election last year--made it clear that India and Afghanistan had "very close (and) friendly relations" and that New Delhi had gone out of its way to help Kabul in reconstructing the war-torn country.
He also said his country did not want to become a battle- ground for proxy wars between India, Pakistan, Iran and the U.S. It did not want any country to engage in any activity against another country in Afghanistan, he added.
Nothing that Afghanis recognized that without Pakistan and its co-operation, their country could be neither stable nor peaceful, Karzai said he also believed that the same was true for Pakistan.
"We are fighting terrorism; I brought this message from people of Afghanistan to the people of Pakistan," he said, adding that both neighbors discussed various matters, including agreements made on transit trade.
Afghanistan has also called upon Pakistan to hand over senior Taliban leaders, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who were arrested in that country over the past few weeks. There is no extradition treaty between the two countries presently, but Pakistan said it would consider any formal request from Afghanistan on the issue.
Afghan Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar, who is believed to have handed over a list of 43 Taliban leaders to Islamabad last month, and his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik, had held talks on finalizing an extradition treaty and an agreement for exchange of prisoners.
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