Brussels, Sept 30(ANI): NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has piled pressure on Pakistan to step up its fight against extremism and terrorism in the border region with Afghanistan.
"We encourage the Pakistani military and the Pakistani government to do its utmost to fight extremism and terrorism in the border region," the Dawn quoted Rasmussen, as saying at a defence forum hosted by the European Policy Centre, an independent think tank.
"It is really a security problem for our troops in Afghanistan that terrorists have safe havens, and that's a fact, in Pakistan," he said.
Rasmussen pointed out that dealing with terrorist sanctuaries on Pakistani soil was in mutual interest, and therefore a 'clear message' had been conveyed to Pakistani authorities in this regard.
"We have to deal with that and it's in our mutual interest to deal with that... That's a reason why we have conveyed that clear message to Pakistan authorities," he said.
There are 140,000 NATO-led foreign forces in Afghanistan- some 100,000 of them from the United States- fighting a Taliban-led insurgency in the war-torn country. (ANI)
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