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Iran Hails Pakistani Efforts in Afghan Crisis
TEHRAN, Nov 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Iranian Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mussavi-Lari on Sunday hailed Islamabad's "efforts" towards a rapprochement with Tehran over the Afghan crisis.
"Pakistan's leaders are making efforts towards harmonizing their views on the Afghan crisis with those of the Islamic Republic of Iran," said Mussavi-Lari. "The Pakistanis have announced that they were determined to cooperate with Iran for a settlement of the Afghan crisis," added the minister, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Lari made a three-day visit to Islamabad last week, during which he met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
The two countries have been at odds since the start of the U.S.-led military campaign against Afghanistan. Tehran condemned the air strikes and denied Washington its support, while Islamabad became a key player in the U.S.-led campaign.
The two regional rivals are struggling for influence in post-Taliban Afghanistan. But both countries are equally concerned by the domestic impact of a refugee crisis and continued instability in their mutual neighbor.
During his recent visit, Mussavi-Lari signed a bi-lateral border security agreement with Pakistan. The two countries host a total of four million Afghan refugees.
"Iran and Pakistan are two important countries in the region, which can play a key role in a solution to the Afghan question," Mussavi-Lari said.
Until the deadly September 11 attacks on the U.S., Pakistan was the main ally of the Taliban. On the other hand, Iran never recognized the Taliban and has hailed the recent military victories of the Northern Alliance.
Musharraf paid a surprise visit to Iran on November 7, on his way to talks with Western leaders.
Meanwhile, the Iranian English-language daily newspaper, Tehran Times, Sunday praised Pakistan despite certain ups and downs in Tehran-Islamabad relations during the past few years. An editorial in the paper said both countries have tried their best to remain "strategic friends" and prevent any harm to their "brotherly ties".
However, the paper added that the Afghan issue continued to remain a thorn in the side of the two countries' relationship, with Pakistan "putting all its eggs" in the Taliban's basket. It alleged that Islamabad made every effort over the past few years to control Afghanistan through the agency of the militia, which took to power with the help of some countries, including the U.S., added the paper.
Islamabad was not so lucky, since the world public opinion was reluctant to approve of a reactionary and "Stone-Age" group as the ruling clique in Afghanistan, noted the
Tehran Times.
However, Islamabad officials now have the opportunity, provided by the recent visit by Iranian Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari to Pakistan, aimed at discussing bilateral security issues, to lay the foundation for a new phase in bilateral ties with the Islamic Republic, advised the paper.
Besides improving their mutual ties, it would do well for both countries to join hands in helping to pave the way for a broad-based government in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, in Islamabad, The Dawn newspaper said on Sunday that the collapse of Afghanistan's Taliban regime opens a new chapter in the "Great Game" of Central Asia, with Pakistan, Russia and Iran jockeying furiously for influence in their mutual neighbor.
With the Taliban on the run, Tehran and Islamabad - under watchful Russian and U.S. eyes - are racing to establish diplomatic beachheads in a country that has been at the crossroads of regional politics for centuries, AFP reported.
Ethnic and religious passions, fears of unstable borders and a potential petro-dollar windfall are all on the table in a regional update of the 19th century Anglo-Russian rivalry that became known as the "Great Game."
Iran, meanwhile, an ardent supporter of the victorious Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, is rushing to be among the first countries to open an embassy in Kabul, the government newspaper in Tehran reported Saturday.
Sources said Iranian foreign ministry officials took to the road from eastern Iran to prepare for the reopening of their diplomatic missions in the capital as well as the cities of Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif, reported AFP.
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