Pakistan declines Afghani claims

Islamabad: Pakistan on Tuesday rejected as "baseless" a claim from the Afghan government that its powerful spy agency and armed forces are behind the raging Taliban-led insurgency.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are both US allies in the war on terror, but relations between them have been strained in recent years due to accusations from Kabul that Islamabad is not doing enough to stop militants from entering Afghanistan to target the Afghan and US-led coalition forces.

The situation took a new turn on Monday when Afghan government called Pakistan's army and its spy agency "the world's biggest producers of terrorism and extremism" and suspended bilateral meetings.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry responded on Tuesday by accusing Kabul of creating an "artificial crisis" to satisfy "short term political expediencies" and urged it to rethink.

It said "such baseless accusations" served no purpose and called for the two sides to work together to defeat terrorism.

Pakistan's new government has promised to do whatever it can to combat terrorism and secure the border with Afghanistan.