KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the emergence of a democratic government in Pakistan offered a "dim ray of hope" that regional cooperation, including India, could help bring an end to Taliban and al Qaeda violence.
The emergence of a democratic government in Pakistan and the election of Asif Ali Zardari as president there in September offered a chance for change, Karzai said.
"Democratic change in Pakistan is good news for Afghans, Pakistanis and, by extension, many others across the world," Karzai wrote in an opinion piece in The Australian newspaper.
The United States and its NATO allies with troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan have been keen to foster dialogue and good relations between Karzai and Zardari to replace the often acrimonious mud-slinging of the past.
"I visited Pakistan for President Zardari's inauguration and for the first time I saw a dim ray of hope," Karzai said.
"If we can all work together -- Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the U.S. and our allies -- I see a possibility of moving beyond the days when a government thinks it needs extremism as an instrument of policy," he said.
"When all governments in the region reject extremism, there will be no place for extremists, and terrorism will wither away."
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has said the U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan might be made easier if Washington worked to improve trust between India and Pakistan.
Karzai said that after the rapid overthrow of the Taliban following the Sept. 11 attacks, the international community made a mistake by concentrating on Afghanistan as the battlefield against militancy instead of adopting a regional approach.
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