Trilateral meetings, USA, AFGHAN, PAKI

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer 
Friday, February 27, 2009; Page A04

The United States, Pakistan andAfghanistan will begin regular, trilateral meetings after sessions held among the three nations here this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced yesterday.

Talks over the past three days "would have been valuable even if they had simply been bilateral," Clinton said in remarks with Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta and his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. But the meetings were "especially meaningful" because "we have all been working together," she said, adding that the governments will come together again in late April or early May.

The unprecedented trilateral talks were part of a U.S. effort to encourage cooperation between the neighboring governments over terrorist inroads in both countries. They came as the Obama administration is conducting a strategic review of the foundering Afghan war effort and of its policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.

SOURCE: MORE.

This maybe a BIG deal, good idea.

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More than 10,000 Taliban insurgents operating in Afghanistan: official

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Afghanistan's Interior Minister Hanif Atmar said here on Friday that some 10,000 to 15,000 Taliban militants are operating in up to 17 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces in the country.

    Apart from many Afghans who were recruited for economic reasons, most of the insurgents were foreigners operating with Al-Qaida or Central Asian extremist groups, Atmar told reporters.

    Atmar, who is here for a three-way dialogue with the United States and Pakistan on a new "war on terror" strategy, denied the saying that insurgents are rampant. "Terrorist attacks do not represent their strength but indeed their weakness," the minister said.

    U.S. President Barack Obama, who vowed to beef up effort to battle against extremism in Afghanistan, has authorized a 17,000 troop increase for war in the country.

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