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SYDNEY: Australia on Sunday called for greater engagement with
Pakistan on fighting insurgents along the Afghan border, saying
unrest there could spread elsewhere in the world.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said militants in
the tribal area were posing a threat to foreign troops in
Afghanistan, including Australia’s 1,000 soldiers in southern
Uruzgan.
“We are now very worried about conditions in
Pakistan on that border area,” Smith told the Australian
Broadcasting Corp.
“I think we’ve got to start looking at the
border between Afghanistan not just as a bilateral issue between
those two nations, but a regional issue in which the international
community has to play a role.
“I think the Pakistan government is only too
well aware of the significant Australian and international community
concern about what is occurring in that border region.”
Smith said violence in the tribal zone posed a
potential threat beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“There’s no doubt the Afghanistan area is
the hotbed of international terrorism,” he said. “That terrorism
can move very quickly to the south, to the southeast of Asia.”
Pakistan has called for greater cooperation with
the United States on the border after an airstrike by US-led
coalition forces based in Afghanistan, which it said, killed 11 of
its troops.
The incident was the deadliest of its kind since
President Pervez Musharraf sided with the United States in 2001
against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
-- AFP
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