US legislators met Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Sunday, and afterwards said that they would raise with Pakistan concerns about its peace deals with extremists. The four Democratic US congressmen said that part of their reason for visiting Kabul and Islamabad was to look into the issue of extremist "sanctuaries" on the Pakistan side of the border.
There was widespread concern about the deals, said one of the lawmakers, Ben Nelson, a senator from Nebraska. "They are protected in their sanctuaries, and yet they come into Afghanistan and take on the activities of terrorists," he said.
Afghan and Western officials have reacted cautiously to Islamabad's moves to reach peace deals with extremists, saying that it could result in stepped up violence in Afghanistan. Nelson said the United States needed to focus on Afghanistan "a little more," and this could include boosting its troop numbers as 'Taliban and terrorists' arrive from across the border. There was also a need to protect farmers in the opium-producing south so they could turn from growing opium poppies to cultivating food, he said.
Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's opium, about 60 percent of which is converted into heroin inside the country. Drugs production is financing a Taliban-led insurgency that has gained pace in the last two years.
Nelson was accompanied by Florida Representatives Allen Boyd and Timothy Mahoney, and Representative Nick Lampson of Texas. They are also due to visit New Delhi and Islamabad.