Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad Wednesday for talks with Pakistani leaders after his government called for the extradition of a senior Taliban commander captured in Pakistan.
Karzai will stay in Pakistan for two days. It is his first visit to neighbouring Pakistan, which like Afghanistan is battling Taliban militants, since his controversial re-election in troubled polls last year.
On arrival in Islamabad, Karzai was received by Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and other senior officials, Pakistani officials said.
President Asif Ali Zardari is to host a state banquet for Karzai and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will hold talks with him Thursday.
Kabul accuses Islamabad of not doing enough to eliminate Taliban operatives based on Pakistani territory, from where they have been waging an insurgency in Afghanistan now in its ninth year.
Karzai has vowed to make efforts to hold a peace conference to encourage Taliban and other insurgent leaders to lay down their arms, but has pledged no reconciliation with the militant network Al-Qaeda.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was to deliver a speech in the United States on Wednesday pressing the Afghan government to step up efforts for a political solution with the Taliban to bring the conflict to an end.
Pakistan has said it could play a role in promoting reconciliation in Afghanistan and has expressed willingness to assist Afghan-led peace efforts.
Under US pressure, Pakistan has launched campaigns in its tribal corridor on the Afghan border, where the core Taliban leadership and Al-Qaeda-linked militants fled after the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Pakistan has also confirmed the arrest of Mullah Adbul Ghani Baradar, said by US officials to be second only to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The Afghan government has asked Pakistan to extradite Baradar and more than 40 other people, including Taliban militants, currently in Pakistani prisons.
