Afghanistan does not want a proxy war between Pakistan and India or anybody else fought on its soil, Afghan president Hamid Karzai said on Thursday during a visit to Pakistan.
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan are vying for influence in Afghanistan, complicating US-led efforts to end an intensifying Taliban insurgency and bring stability to Afghanistan more than eight years after the Taliban were ousted.
Karzai said he did not want any country using Afghanistan against another. His visit comes after Pakistan has intensified efforts to fight militancy, winning US praise.
"The bottom line is, Afghanistan does not want any proxy wars on its territory," Karzai told a news conference with Pakistani prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.
"It does not want a proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan, it does not want a proxy war between Iran and the United States in Afghanistan," he said.
India has developed close relations with Karzai's government while ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been fraught with tension over recent years, mostly over Afghan suspicion Pakistan is quietly helping the Taliban.
Analysts say Pakistan sees the Afghan Taliban as a tool to promote its interests in Afghanistan, where it wants to see a friendly government in power and to limit India's influence.
While India accuses Pakistan of backing militants who attack its interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan accuses India of using its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan to help separatist militants in its southwestern province of Baluchistan.
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