Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan to hold trilateral summit

ANKARA - Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan will hold a seventh edition of a trilateral summit, which kicks off on Wednesday, to provide a comprehensive platform for promoting high-level political dialogue, security cooperation and development partnership.

Pakistani and Afghan delegations, led respectively by the countries' presidents, Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai, will arrive in Turkey's capital of Ankara to attend the three-day summit. The delegations also include communication and interior ministers, along with high-ranking military officials.

The summit will focus on strengthening economic and commercial cooperation through improving existing ties and developing new links of transportation between the three countries.

The first of the annual summits was held in Ankara in April 2007, focusing mainly on security issues in war-torn Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency of supporting Taliban insurgents, who launched a string of dramatic attacks in recent months as foreign troops prepare to pull out most combat troops by 2014.

Islamabad, which denies supporting the Taliban, complained in turn that insurgents from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, have been using Afghanistan as a base from which to launch attacks in Pakistan.