DINNER FOR THREE

by MONITOR
GIVE credit to Mr Bush for trying. It cannot have been easy to have dinner guests who are hardly on speaking terms and won't shake hands. The menu was soup, sea bass and salad. Probably Pervez Musharraf and Hamid Karzai were glad to know that Mr Bush likes to get to bed early so that the conversation would not be prolonged. In preliminary remarks, with the two Presidents standing stiffly on either side on him, Mr Bush said the dinner would provide ”a chance for us to strategise together”. In reality it was probably very tough going indeed because there is a deep division of opinion and belief between the two men on where the responsibility lies for the resurgence of the Taliban forces that is making Afghanistan's recovery and future so uncertain. Afghan officials say that Pakistan allows Taliban militants to base themselves in its mountainous territory adjoining Afghanistan. President Musharraf says that Karzai has bad information and that there are 80'000 Pakistan troops deployed on the border to prevent Taliban incursions. Karzai says that Pakistan does little about the extremism bred at its Islamic schools. Musharraf responds that Karzai is behaving ”like an ostrich” and refusing to recognise the reforms that have been introduced. On one thing they agree. Each accuses the other of harbouring Osama bin Laden. After the dinner the White House said there had been a ”constructive exchange” between the three Presidents but declined to go beyond that. A nice try, though.