Pakistan's Zardari postpones Kabul trip

KABUL: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday was forced to postpone a trip to Afghanistan for talks with his counterpart Hamid Karzai on the anti-terror fight due to bad weather, officials said.

The two leaders were due to discuss how to combat a resurgent Taliban militia that is staging deadly attacks on both sides of the rugged common border, but Zardari was unable to leave Pakistan.

The Pakistani leader -- who was to have made his first official visit to Afghanistan since taking office three months ago -- said he hoped to reschedule the trip "at an appropriate future time," Karzai's office said in a statement.

In Islamabad, a foreign ministry official confirmed the postponement of the trip, without specifying whether a new date had been set.

Islamabad and Kabul, allies in the US-led "war on terror", are struggling to rein in Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who have been holed up in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

"Pakistan attaches a high priority to forging close, friendly and cooperative relations with Afghanistan," the Pakistani foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday.

Karzai has accused Islamabad in the past of not doing enough to prevent cross-border operations by Taliban insurgents against Afghan and international troops.

Taliban militants are also stepping up their operations in Pakistan, staging spectacular attacks on NATO supply depots in the northwest near the border, torching trucks and containers destined for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

At a meeting in Turkey earlier this month, the two leaders pledged to work out a common strategy to fight Islamic extremists operating in the border areas.

Pakistan's mountainous northwest tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the toppling of the hardline Taliban regime by US-led forces in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

But Islamabad rejects claims that it is not doing enough to curb militant activity. The Pakistani army is engaged in a major military campaign against militants in the Bajaur tribal agency.

Ahead of the talks, Zardari told tribal lawmakers that Islamabad had "no alternative but to fight militancy in the country," according to a government statement.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who arrived in Kabul on Thursday to prepare for Zardari's visit, had predicted the trip would mark a fresh start in the sometimes contentious relations between the two neighbours.

"I foresee pleasant changes in the region in future," Qureshi told Pakistani media.

Karzai visited Pakistan in September to attend Zardari's swearing-in ceremony. The two also met in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, and in Istanbul earlier this month.