BRUSSELS - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry brought senior Afghan and Pakistani officials together Wednesday for security talks aimed at improving relations between the two nations ahead of next year’s withdrawal of NATO combat forces from Afghanistan.
Kerry met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani at Truman Hall, the secluded estate on the outskirts of Brussels that is home to the U.S. ambassador to NATO. Kerry said as he opened the meeting that the talks were important, as Afghanistan is currently in a “critical transformational period.”
The meeting lasted about three hours and included lunch and a stroll around the estate’s manicured gardens, but apparently did little to ease the tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan as all sides try to draw the Taliban to peace negotiations.
“It’s fair to say that there is a good feeling among all of us that we made progress in this dialogue. But we have all agreed that results are whatwill tell the story, not statements at a press conference,” Kerry told reporters after the meeting.
“We have a lot of homework to do. We are not going to raise expectations or make promises that can’t be delivered,” he said, noting it was better to “under-promise but deliver.”
Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been strained over links between Pakistan’s security apparatus and the Taliban. The U.S. supports Afghan-Taliban reconciliation, but Karzai has said the effort must have Pakistan’s backing to succeed.
Meanwhile, the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan said civilian casualties rose nearly 30 percent in the first three months of the year, calling it a “troubling rise” in violence.
The U.S.-led NATO force said Wednesday that Afghan and coalition forces killed 13 insurgents in joint operations that began a day earlier ineastern Kapisa and Nangarhar provinces close to where the Taliban are thought to have kidnapped foreign civilians.
The Afghan government said it was trying to win the release of eight Turks, an Afghan translator and two pilots - one from Russia and the other from Kyrgyzstan - who were kidnapped after their helicopter made an emergency landing in bad weather Sunday in eastern Logar province, adjacent to Nangarhar.
“It’s a very serious issue. We are following that issuevery closely through our police organizations in Logar province, with the governor’s office and with local elders in that particular area,” Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said Wednesday.
“That’s the priority, not only for the Afghan police but for the Afghan security forces as a whole and for the governor of Logar province.”
He added that the Afghan government was doing all it could to make sure the captives were safe and that a proper way to seek their release is found. “If it is throughlocal elders, if it’s through any councils - whatever it takes,” he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Tuesday that the captives were safe and in “good health,” but denied reports that negotiations are under way for their release.
Afghanistan has seen heavy fighting in recent weeks as warmer, springtime weather allows insurgents to move more freely. After the winter, militants are able to infiltrate Afghanistan from mountain passes that connect to neighboring Pakistan where they have sanctuaries.
The Taliban have increasingly targeted Afghan government officials in recent attacks, including an April 3 assault on a courthouse and government offices in western Farah province. Forty-six people were killed, including two judges, six prosecutors, administration officers and cleaners working at the site.
The U.N. said violence increased by 30 percent in the first three months of the year and called on the Taliban to stop targeting civilians and using children in suicide attacks.
“Following a 12 percent decline in civilian casualties in2012, the first three months of 2013 saw a troubling rise,” Jan Kubis, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, told a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. “Compared to the same quarter in 2012, we assess that civilian casualties were up by almost 30 percent with 475 civilians killed and 872 injured.”
He described the Farah attack as “nothing less than a war crime” and said a Taliban decision to target government officials and people working for the Karzai administration or the U.S.-led coalition “are of extreme concern.”
One child was killed and another three were injured Wednesday morning when a grenade being used at an Afghan army training ground in the southern city of Kandahar exploded outside the military facility, said provincial spokesman Javeed Faisal.The night before, four children were killed while they were playing with a roadside bomb that exploded in Maruf district. The four were brothers, and a young girl also was wounded, he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Patrick Quinn of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 04/25/2013