Pakistan is a central player in regional efforts to improve trade and strengthen its weak economies. But its boycott has cast a pall over the session, because it points out that nation's influence in Afghanistan and its ability to play the spoiler.
Pakistan is seen as instrumental to ending the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan because of its links to militant groups and its unwillingness, from the US and Nato perspective, to drive insurgents from safe havens on its soil where they regroup and rearm.
Pakistan cancelled its participation to protest last month's Nato air assault, carried out from Afghan territory, that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The deaths fed the popular perspective in Pakistan that the US and Nato, not the Taliban, are Pakistan's principal enemies.
"Nobody (...) is more concerned than the United States is about getting an accurate picture of what occurred in the recent border incident," Clinton said with an edge in her voice. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told The Associated Press in Lahore, Pakistan, that his country remained committed to working with Afghanistan to bring insurgent leaders into talks with the government.
"I think we have evolved some mechanisms, and we are ready to cooperate," he said, referring to meetings with Afghanistan's military and intelligence chiefs on a framework for talks. "We are committed (to reconciliation), despite that we are not attending (the Bonn meeting)," he said.
Pakistan's army accused Nato of a "deliberate act of aggression," an assertion the Pentagon hotly denied. Clinton called the deaths tragic and pledged a thorough investigation. Pakistan rebuffed her entreaties, as recently as Saturday, to reconsider and attend the conference. President Barack Obama called Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari Sunday to reaffirm that the Nato airstrikes were not deliberate attacks and that the US is committed to a full investigation.
The US had once hoped to use the Bonn gathering to announce news about the prospect for peace talks with the Taliban, but Afghan and US outreach efforts have not borne fruit. The reconciliation efforts suffered a major setback after the September assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was leading the Afghan government's effort to broker peace with the insurgents. The final declaration of the Bonn conference is expected to outline broad principles for political reconciliation with the Taliban, a project that several leading participants in the conference increasingly predict will outlast the Nato timeline for withdrawal in 2014.
The session is also expected to address the holdup in hundreds of millions in development aid for smaller, community-based projects because of financial irregularities and corruption in Afghanistan's key Kabul Bank. The International Monetary Fund lifted some restrictions related to Kabul Bank last month, which Afghan diplomats said should give a green light to renewed international contributions. The US has held its annual contribution to between $650 million and $700 million. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will formally open the one-day conference of about 1,000 delegates. Afghanistan's western neighbour Iran also joins the conference, represented by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.
Afghanistan is failing in two major areas in particular: security and good government. Violence has gone up sharply this year, and has spread to the once-peaceful north of the country. And widespread corruption is bedevilling attempts to create a viable Afghan government and institutions to take over when the US and Nato leave. Afghanistan provides about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin. Money from the sale of opium is also used to fuel the insurgency, helping to buy weapons and equipment for the Taliban.
A law meant to protect Afghan women from a host of abusive practices, including rape, forced marriage and the trading of women to settle disputes, is being undermined by spotty enforcement, the UN said in a report last month. The 2009 law criminalized many abuses for the first time, including domestic violence, child marriage, driving a woman to resort to suicide and the selling and buying of women. Yet the report found that in the first full year the law was in effect prosecutors filed indictments in only 7 percent of the more than 2,000 alleged crimes reported.