Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai Tuesday said a White House summit with his Pakistani counterpart will discuss closing militant "sanctuaries" in Pakistan. Karzai said that Afghans overwhelmingly opposed Taliban extremists but said that the militants enjoyed bases across the porous border with Pakistan.
"The return of the Taliban is because we did not address the question of sanctuaries in time. Unfortunately, today, Pakistan is suffering with us massively as a consequence of that," Karzai said.
Karzai is set to meet Wednesday with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and US President Barack Obama, who has put a new focus on rooting out extremism from the region. "Tomorrow we will have an occasion between us - Afghanistan, Pakistan and America - to address this very question," Karzai said at the Brookings Institution think-tank.
"Afghanistan will do all that it can, in immense friendship and brotherhood with Pakistan and alliance and friendship with America, to address it," he said. Pakistan was the main backer of Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban regime until the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, which then invaded and paved the way for Karzai to take office in Kabul. Karzai said that Afghans remained deeply grateful to Pakistan for helping fight the Soviet Union and then playing host to millions of Afghan refugees.
But he said Afghanistan had "differences of opinion" with "certain elements of the Pakistani policy," such as the use of religious radicalism. He also dismissed Pakistan's concerns about rival India's influence in Afghanistan, saying his country was free to make its own friends. "We are a very jealous country when it comes to that. We love our independence like hell and our sovereignty," Karzai said. "That's why we have fought everybody."
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