Karzai: Pakistan gives shelter to Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan will remain unless that country's government cooperates in helping root them out.

"On the overall policy of Pakistan toward Afghanistan and towards the Taliban, definitely, the Taliban will not be able to move a finger without Pakistani support," Karzai said in a recent interview with the BBC.

Speaking of recent Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, including the killing last month of peace envoy and former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karzai pointed to Pakistan and said, "These problems come from abroad."

He said the president and prime minister of Pakistan want good relations with Afghanistan but stressed Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan will continue unless the government there cooperates with the Afghan administration in targeting them.

Pakistan officials deny the country supports insurgents.

Karzai also told the British broadcaster Afghanistan and its allies have failed to provide citizens of the country security in the 10 years since the overthrow of the Taliban.

"We've done terribly badly in providing security to the Afghan people and this is the greatest shortcoming of our government and of our international partners," he said.

"What we should do is provide better and a more predictable environment of security to the Afghan citizens and in that the international community and the Afghan government definitely have failed."

Karzai said Taliban sanctuaries should have been targeted early in the war.

"NATO and the U.S. and our neighbors in Pakistan should have concentrated a long time back, in the beginning of 2002-3, on the (Taliban) sanctuaries," he said.

Karzai also said he plans to leave office in 2014, when NATO troops are expected to end their combat role, and said he has begun working to find a successor.

"I feel it is my responsibility to be working on a next president that the Afghans can trust and that they can have faith in, and that he as the president can serve this nation," he said.

The United Nations said more than 10,000 Afghan civilians have died in violence the past five years alone.