Islamabad: Pakistan denied Thursday any role by its intelligence agency in the failed plot to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

"Pakistan rejects these baseless and irresponsible allegations and the attitude and the proclivity behind them," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told a weekly press briefing in Islamabad.

A spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, Sayeed Ansari, Wednesday accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its operatives of being "the real schemers and organisers" of the attack.

Sadiq said the "surprising" accusations suggested that the Afghan government perhaps desired to restart the blame game.

"Ill-considered allegations do not help the war on terrorism," he observed, stressing that the Afghan officials must refrain from making such "irresponsible" remarks.

Taliban rebels claimed responsibility for the April 27 attack on the military parade celebrating 16 years since the end to Soviet-backed rule in Afghanistan, but claimed it was just a warning attack not targeting Karzai.

Three people, including an Afghan parliamentarian and a child, were killed and around a dozen others were injured when the spectators came under fire from the Taliban fighters.

The first time direct allegation against the alleged involvement of Pakistan's security agencies in the Afghan conflict came within a fortnight of Karzai's blatant threat to send Afghan troops into Pakistan to take out pro-Taliban leadership.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have recently become more strained in the aftermath of a growing number of attacks on coalition forces and the Afghan national army by Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters believed to have bases in Pakistan's tribal region.

 

Source : IANS