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Pakistan needs to do more to close Afghan border, says Rice
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that Pakistan needed to do more to help curb the flow of militants across its border into Afghanistan.
- Agencies
- Published: 10:49 July 25, 2008
Perth, Australia: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that Pakistan needed to do more to help curb the flow of militants across its border into Afghanistan.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith backed Rice's call, saying the northwest frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan was the "current international hotbed of terrorism".
Many Taliban militants freely cross the Pakistan-Afghan border despite Pakistani military operations aimed at stemming the flow.
"What we need to do is to look hard at how the Taliban is regrouping, why the Taliban is fighting in the way that they are now," Rice told a news conference in Perth, Australia.
"They generally are taken on and defeated pretty handily when they come in actual military formation. But there is an uptick in the terrorism, not just against forces but the Afghan people," she said. "In that regard everybody needs to do more, but Pakistan does need to do more."
"We understand that the northwest frontier area is difficult, but militants cannot be allowed to organise there and plan there and engage across the border," she said.
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