US told to end blame game on support for Taliban

A leaked US military report claiming Pakistan supported the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan should be "disregarded", Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, said yesterday.

During an official visit to the Afghan capital Kabul, she said: "We can disregard this as a potentially strategic leak ... This is old wine in an even older bottle."

The US military said in a secret report that the Taliban was poised to retake control of Afghanistan after Nato-led forces withdrew from the country, raising the prospect of a major failure of Western policy after a costly war.

Ms Khar, whose visit was the first high-level meeting in months between officials from both countries, added that the neighbours should stop blaming each other for strained cross-border ties.

"We must start engaging in the end of blame games," she said.

Meanwhile, Pakistani officials confirmed that a parcel sent to an office of Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in October contained a small amount of deadly anthrax spores.

Reuters