Pakistan denies charges of aiding Taliban in Afghanistan's Ghazni

Islamabad: The Pakistan Foreign Office has denied allegations that Pakistani citizens supported the Taliban attack on Afghanistans Ghazni last week, a media report said on Friday.

"We have not received any evidence to back up these spurious accusations and reject these baseless allegations," Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Faisal said, rejecting allegations made by Afghan officials and others.

On August 10, some 1,000 Taliban fighters stormed the city of Ghazni and retreated five days later, reports Dawn news.

Afghan Defence Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami said earlier this week that the Ghazni attack had been carried out by Taliban with the support of external elements, including Pakistanis.

The New York Times also reported that Afghan officials had claimed the Taliban were aided by foreign fighters, including Pakistanis and Chechens, and even some Al Qaeda affiliates.

Faisal said that Pakistan was fencing the border with Afghanistan with the objective of restricting cross-border movement of both "men and material" as part of its counterterrorism efforts.

He expressed the hope that the border fencing would help achieve long-term regional stability and improve relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The spokesman disclosed that Pakistan and Afghanistan, under a new framework for bilateral relations, were negotiating "a time bound" repatriation plan for Afghan refugees.

"An Afghan delegation from the Ministry of Refu­gee and Repatriation will visit Islamabad shortly for consultations," he added.