Musharraf, Bush to discuss Taliban

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will be hard-pressed at a White House meeting tomorrow to explain a peace deal with tribal leaders that Afghans fear will turn the border region into a safe haven for al Qaeda and the Taliban.

White House and State Department officials have told reporters that the meeting would focus on the resurgence of violence in Afghanistan and on a recent deal Pakistan signed with pro-Taliban elements in the region bordering Afghanistan.

The deal would allow the militants to live peacefully if they give up arms and denounce violence.

But the Afghans complain that the arrangement will lift the pressure on the Taliban and al Qaeda supporters living on the Pakistan side of the border and free them for waging attacks inside Afghanistan.

The Pakistanis reject the suggestion.

"This deal would not only bring peace to our side of the border but can also be replicated in Afghanistan if it succeeds," says Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri.

President Bush says he understands what Gen. Musharraf is attempting to do but that the United States will be watching developments "very carefully."

"What [Gen. Musharraf] is doing is entering agreements with governors in the regions of the country, in the hopes that there would be an economic vitality, there will be alternatives to violence and terror," Mr. Bush told ABC News in a recent interview.

"We have made it clear that he should not provide an environment that enables people to go from his country into Afghanistan," Mr. Bush said.

In a conversation with CNN's Wolf Blitzer yesterday, Mr. Bush insisted that he would send forces into Pakistan to capture or kill al Qaeda leaders if solid intelligence information pinpointed them in that country, according to Cox News Service.