By DPA
Kabul : Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf made a last-minute appearance Sunday at the close of the tribal assembly for peace in Kabul, calling upon the two countries to cease feuding and form a united front against the Taliban insurgents.
“Let us develop trust between ourselves. If there is no trust we cannot overcome anything,” Musharraf told Afghan President Hamid Karzai and some 650 delegates gathered in a huge tent in the capital.
“No two countries are closer than Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said after months of mutual sniping at failures in the war against terrorism, adding that their “destinies are intertwined”.
Musharraf pulled out of the jirga’s opening session Thursday because of a security crisis in Islamabad. During a subsequent phone call, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is thought to have urged the military ruler to attend the event, which was then extended by one day to Sunday.
Following months of growing friction between the two governments over the cross-border movement of Taliban fighters from Pakistan’s tribal areas, Musharraf’s absence had threatened to undermine the jirga, which is an ancient forum for resolving disputes.
While both leaders are US allies in the war against terror, their governments have repeatedly charged each other with failing to cooperate in one another’s counter-terrorism efforts.
“We should not blame each other for the problems,” Musharraf said.
The two countries should instead concentrate on bringing social and economic development to the restive Pashtun tribal areas and urge locals to “reach out to their estranged brothers” who side with the militants.
While noting that the Taliban had their roots in Afghanistan, he acknowledged that they find considerable support in Pakistan’s remote border communities.
In his brief comments at Sunday’s session, Karzai said Musharraf had called for renewed and reciprocal efforts to improve relations and jointly tackle extremism and terrorism.
“We assure you of such trust and confidence between our countries from Afghanistan’s side,” Karzai said.
As the Taliban regained strength after their 2001 ouster from power in Afghanistan by US-led forces, the two leaders, together with US President George Bush, proposed last September to hold the jirga and involve Pashtun tribes along the border in peace efforts.
But Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao stressed in Kabul Sunday that the jirga was still an independently organized initiative to combat the violence, Pakistani news reports said.
“The peace meet has not been arranged at the behest of the US but because people from both countries and their leadership were willing to sit together to wipe out the problems at its roots,” Sherpao told journalists.
Tribal elders, clerics and politicians at the jirga divided into five working groups to discuss issues such as cross border infiltration, enhancement of relations between the two countries and better ways to counter the narcotics trade in the region.
A joint statement was due to be released at the end of the event.
The jirga was also to determine the date and venue for a second meeting in Pakistan.