KABUL - Afghanistan on Sunday voiced the hope that Tajikistan would soon reopen the border crossings it sealed last week due to a military operation to detain a former warlord.
On Tuesday, Tajik President EmomaliRakhmon ordered an offensive in the autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan against supporters of TalibAiombekov, charged with killing a senior security official.

Tajik authorities sealed off the border after eight Afghan militants, who were fighting for Aiombekov, were captured by security personnel.
They fear Taliban-linked insurgents were sneaking into the former Soviet republic to support the ex-warlord.

A foreign ministry spokesman, addressing a weekly media briefing in Kabul on Sunday, hoped the border would reopen once the security operation came to an end.
JananMusazai referred to a recent visit by senior Afghan officials, including Interior Minister BismillahMohammadi and the National Directorate of Security chief, to Dushanbe.

The delegation assured their Tajik interlocutors of all-out help in enforcing security and defeating terrorists.
Military officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan would meet soon on ways of effectively preventing cross-border incursions into eastern parts of the country, the spokesman said.

Hundreds of people have been killed, wounded and displaced as a result of rocket and missile strikes, as well as artillery shelling, from Pakistani territory into border towns of eastern Kunar province over the past one year.

Musazai said that army commanders from the two countries would meet in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar, to sort out the issue.
However, he gave no specific date for the meeting.

Musazai quoted President Hamid Karzai as saying that problems occasionally erupted in areas along the border, known as Durand Line. But attacks from the neighboring country were in no way acceptable to Afghanistan, he hastened to add.

The foreign ministry had been doing all it could at the diplomatic level to put a permanent halt to the incursions, he said, recalling last week's protest that was lodged with Islamabad on continued missile and rocket strikes.
Deputy Foreign Minister JavedLodin communicated Afghanistan's concerns over the incursions to Pakistan Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq.

The National Security Council also took up the issue at last week's meeting, chaired by President Karzai. (Pajhwok)