Obama applauds Afghan and Pakistani cooperation

Washington: US President Barack Obama is applauding Pakistan and Afghanistan for their commitment to helping the United States fight terrorists.

"The road ahead will be difficult," Obama said on Wednesday after a series of meetings with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.

"There will be more violence, and there will be setbacks," he said, adding that the United States will still remain committed to “defeat Al Qaida'' and support Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Obama's national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, told reporters later that Obama was clear in his support for Zardari, who has come under heavy US criticism for doing too little to combat a Taliban insurgency.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, told Congress last week that Pakistan was "abdicating" to the Taliban extremists.

"The president pledged to do whatever we could, to do what we can as quickly as possible to help the Pakistani government, and said this type of aid would not just be restricted to military," Jones said.

Wednesday's meetings, which began at the State Department and then moved to the White House, had the added complication of reports that US airstrikes on Sunday had killed dozens of civilians in western Afghanistan.

The top US commander in Afghanistan suggested that the Taliban might be to blame, but Obama and Clinton felt compelled to respond sympathetically.

Obama expressed U.S. regret, promising to "make every effort" to avoid further tragedies as allied forces press the fight against a rising Taliban insurgency.

Obama also used the occasion to praise "unprecedented cooperation" between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which share a long, poorly demarcated and porous border.

"Along the border, where insurgents often move freely, we must work together with a renewed sense of partnership to share intelligence and to coordinate our efforts to isolate, target and take out our common enemy," Obama said in a statement delivered at the White House with Karzai and Zardari at his side.

Obama took no questions from reporters and neither of the other leaders spoke. Obama met separately with Karzai and Zardari, followed by a three-way session.

The latest report of Afghan civilian casualties came at an especially awkward time for the Obama administration, which is stepping up its military campaign inside Afghanistan while also seeking to emphasize the importance of nonmilitary efforts to stabilize the country.

The administration has pledged, for example, a major increase in civilian expertise in farming and other specialties.

Jones told reporters that the president began his meeting with Karzai by addressing the reported civilian deaths Sunday.

Jones said Obama commented "with great sympathy" and expressed regret for the loss of innocent life. Earlier, before her meetings with Karzai and Zardari at the State Department, Clinton said the US "deeply, deeply" regrets the loss of civilian lives.

Obama told Karzai that investigations "will be pursued aggressively with full intent to discover what in fact did happen, how it happened and how we can make sure that things like that do not happen again. And it was clear that President Karzai was moved by that ... and he thanked the president for starting off the meeting with that expression of condolence."