Wednesday, September 6 2006 16:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Cautiously welcoming the peace agreement signed between the Pakistani Government and pro-Taliban militants of the areas bordering Afghanistan, the Bush administration has said the pact was in Islamabad's interest but added that it was not aware of the details.

"I haven't seen the news reports that are addressing the agreement... I'll try to check into that ," was the first response given by the State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack to reporters here yesterday when queried about it.

However, he said that it was in the interests of Pakistan that it exercise sovereignty throughout the country.

"It is in the interests of Pakistan and the Pakistani people that the government be able to exercise its sovereignty throughout all of Pakistan. This is an area that, traditionally, has not been under the control of a central government. So this is an historical problem ," he said.

The spokesman said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had spoken to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the measures he would take for the region during her last visit to that country.

"When Secretary Rice was last there, she did talk to President Musharraf about his approach in the tribal areas and he talked to her at length. It was his presentation to her about how he was going to bring about an integrated civilian military/political approach to the tribal areas to try to work with them, work on development as well as on the security aspects," McCormack said.

He said Musharraf had a 'healthy appreciation' of the 'importance of not having safe havens where Al Qaida, the Taliban, other terrorist groups can plan and launch terrorist attacks not only against Afghans and international forces in Afghanistan, but again Pakistanis and Pakistan.

Asked to comment as to what would be the implication of any withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the border with Afghanistan, the spokesman said that both Islamabad and Kabul have a 'shared interest' in seeing the border controlled.

"By tried to do is encourage them to talk and to work together and to solve problems, and solve them privately, as opposed to trying to do it in public, which is sometimes a little bit harder," McCormack said.

Some 80,000 Pakistani troops are deployed along the border with Afghanistan and engaged in security operations and any withdrawal would be a source of concern not just for Kabul but also for the United States.