Zardari invites Karzai to attend oath-taking ceremony

[Naveed Yaseen]

KABUL (September 08 2008): President-elect Asif Ali Zardari has invited his Afghan counterpart to attend his oath-taking ceremony next week, the Afghan government said Sunday.Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Zardari to congratulate him on his victory in the presidential poll Saturday, Karzai's office said in a statement.

"The Pakistani president invited him (Karzai) to take part in the oath-taking ceremony to be held in Islamabad soon," the statement said, adding that Karzai accepted the invitation. Karzai and Musharraf had uneasy relations over the Afghan government accusation that Pakistan was not doing enough to stop cross-border infiltration by militants, an assertion Islamabad vehemently denied.

Karzai, who is said to have had good relations with Benazir Bhutto, expressed hope that relations between the two Islamic countries would improve, the statement said. Thousands of Taliban and their al Qaeda associates fled Afghanistan in the wake of US military invasion in late 2001, and allegedly regrouped in Pakistan's tribal area, close to the Afghani border.

The Afghan government and Nato military officials have accused Taliban militants of crossing the porous border and staging attacks before fleeing back to sanctuaries in Pakistan.

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