Islamabad, July 16 (ANI): Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) has rejected Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's "baseless" allegations levelled against its intelligence agencies and armed forces for conducting terrorist attacks.
"Such baseless accusations serve no purpose other than vitiating bilateral atmosphere and creating an artificial crisis in Pak-Afghan relations," the FO said in a statement.
Earlier, the Afghan cabinet announced that it would boycott meetings with Pakistan until "bilateral trust" was re-established.
"Regretfully, the decision of the Afghan cabinet to suspend important bilateral meetings on such flimsy grounds ignores the importance of economic co-operation to the improvement in the living conditions of the Afghani people that has implications for the overall security situation as well," the Daily Times reported the FO statement as saying. (ANI)
Hekmatyar's group blames Northern Alliance for Indian Embassy suicide attack
Peshawar, July 16 (ANI): The Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), a hard-line mujahideen group led by former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has blamed the Northern Alliance (NA) for the last week's suicide attack on Indian embassy in Kabul killing 58 persons, including four Indians.
In a statement, the HIA said that the Alliance backed such terrorist attacks due to its animosity towards Pakistan.
However, the statement dismissed the allegations by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Pakistan was behind the attack, the Daily Times reported.
"Certain leaders holding positions in Karzai's cabinet belonged to the NA. Those (NA) people want to create differences between India and Pakistan with such tactics," the statement added.
Over 50 persons were killed and more than 141 people were injured, including civilians and security forces in the blast. A suicide bomber had rammed a car full of explosives into the gates of the Indian embassy.
About 3,000 Indians are working on various reconstruction and developmental projects in Afghanistan and the Taliban has often subjected them to attacks. (ANI)
