| The Foreign Office (FO) on Tuesday rejected the "baseless" allegations levelled against Pakistan's intelligence agencies and armed forces by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan cabinet for carrying out 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. The Afghan cabinet on Monday announced that it would boycott all the upcoming meetings with Pakistan unless "bilateral trust" was restored. The FO statement said, "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," APP reported. The statement said the abiding interests of Pak-Afghan relations and the need for credible partnership in the common struggle against terrorism should transcend short-term political expediencies. The statement added that Pakistan hopes that Afghanistan will "do some rethinking" and desist from such provocative statements. |