Karzai Pledges to Back Release of ‘Good’ Pakistani Prisoners

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  In his first visit here since he assumed power, Afghanistan’s interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai, pledged to work for the release of “good” Pakistanis captured alongside Taliban troops and asked Pakistan to continue supporting Afghan refugees until his nation is ready for their return.

The neighboring countries also vowed to rejuvenate “strong brotherly relations” based on mutual respect and trust.

“We wish to conduct our relations with Afghanistan built on principles of sovereign equality, noninterference and mutual interest,” Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said after a short private talk with Karzai on Friday. “We have also agreed not to allow each other’s country to be used against the interest of either country.”

The pledge was a significant shift from past relations, when Pakistan actively supported the Taliban regime, which Karzai opposed. Both men glossed over that recent chapter and focused instead on earlier days when Pakistan helped Karzai and others defeat a Soviet occupation and proxy government.

“We are not only bound by geography and population, but we are also bound, Mr. President, by the years of cooperation in the former Afghan jihad, and the Afghan people remember that and are grateful for that,” Karzai said in Islamabad, the capital. “We do look forward to a tremendously good future ahead of us, and, yes, that future can be made certain by respecting each other’s territorial integrity.”

The mostly symbolic meeting came as the region’s traditional power brokers jockeyed for position. India and Russia on Friday announced a weapons deal that would provide New Delhi with an aircraft carrier and long-range aircraft--an acquisition that threatens to escalate an arms race between India and Pakistan.

Musharraf said he would push for renewed U.S. arms sales to Pakistan during his visit to Washington next week. Those sales were suspended when the United States imposed sanctions on Pakistan after Musharraf took power in a bloodless coup in 1999. The sanctions were lifted after Pakistan pledged support for the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

Russia, India, Iran and the United States have interests in Central Asia’s lucrative oil market, and each has proposed pipeline routes. On Friday, Karzai said pipeline projects through Afghanistan were again under consideration.

“In a way, I think Karzai was trying to reassure Musharraf that whatever India and Russia will be doing in Afghanistan will not be against the interest of Pakistan,” said Rifaat Hussain, director of the department of strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

On the fate of more than 2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Karzai asked for patience.

“Our refugees are given tremendous welcome here, but they have a home to go to, and that is Afghanistan,” Karzai said. “We would be grateful if our brothers in Pakistan allowed us time to prepare for that.”

In turn, Karzai promised that hundreds of Pakistanis would eventually return home from detention camps in Afghanistan. Reports have surfaced that Afghan warlords have been extorting money from the prisoners in exchange for their release.

“We are looking at freeing all the prisoners there, but they will have to be screened out,” Karzai said. “The good ones will definitely come home, and the bad ones are a matter for all of us to deal with in a manner that we find suitable. I’m sure this will have an answer very, very soon.”