Pakistan on Tuesday called for the “blame game” to stop as the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan met to discuss security in the region amid a Taliban insurgency and heightened tensions over cross border shelling.
President Hamid Karzai has condemned the firing of 470 rockets from Pakistan into Afghanistan over the past three weeks. Islamabad says only that “a few accidental rounds” may have crossed the border when it pursued militants who had attacked its security forces. The escalation of fighting on the border between the Tribal Areas and Afghanistan has underscored the difficulties the three countries face in working together to reach a political settlement to the 10-year Afghan war.
“We need to end this blame-game,” Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir told a news conference after a meeting of three countries in Kabul, without making any specific reference to border shelling. “We need to take ownership for our own affairs, this problem will not go away if we keep on pointing finger at each other, we have done it for too long and I think it is time that our two great nations decide.” The talks were formally aimed at mapping out plans for reconciliation with the Taliban, but the shelling had been expected to dominate the agenda.