AFP

KABUL AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai called on Thursday for greater international cooperation to stabilise his war-torn country and defeat Islamist militants, during the latest round of talks on the future of Afghanistan.

Representatives from 29 countries gathered in Kabul for the day-long conference, just weeks after NATO agreed at a summit in Chicago to stick to plans to withdraw the bulk of 130,000 foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

The conflict in Syria is also expected to feature prominently in meetings between foreign ministers on Thursday — including those from Britain and Russia.

The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency against Karzai’s government have begun this year’s annual fighting season with a series of attacks which saw US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admit last week that violence was rising.

Karzai said the help of neighbouring countries and international powers was vital to economic growth and peace in his impoverished country.

He also called on Pakistan, one of the historic sponsors of the Taliban, directly to support nascent efforts to end the 10-year war in Afghanistan.

“Support from these global powers and our neighbours is very important to Afghanistan and to the continued progress of Afghanistan towards stability and economic development,” Karzai told delegates.

“Cooperation of all of us countries in the region, the neighbours, and our allies and NATO that will bring stability not only to Afghanistan but the muchneeded relief from terrorism and radicalism and violence.” He also sought to reassure neighbours, Iran in particular, that strategic partnership deals signed by Kabul with several Western powers, particularly the United States, to govern relations beyond 2014, would not damage ties.

But Iran, a sworn enemy of the United States that welcomes NATO’s departure from its eastern border, alluded to the Kabul- Washington pact by saying it adds to security concerns among Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the deal and efforts to establish foreign military bases in Afghanistan ran counter to peace efforts and “could turn this country once again into scene of security rivalries”.

Karzai is keen to broker a peace deal with the Taliban, but the militants publicly refuse to talk to his government.

Earlier this year, it also announced that it had pulled the plug on nascent contacts with the Americans in Qatar.