Pakistan has role in any talks with Taliban: Karzai

Karzai also condemns attack on a Shia Muslim shrine in central Kabul earlier on Tuesday that killed around 30 people.

BERLIN: Pakistan has an important role to play in the Afghan peace process, including in any negotiations with the Taliban, and that is what Kabul is seeking, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Karzai also condemned an attack on a Shia Muslim shrine in central Kabul earlier on Tuesday that killed around 30 people.

"This is the first time on such an important religious day in Afghanistan that terrorism of that horrible nature is taking place," Karzai said.

Earlier, Karzai had telephoned Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to reconsider Pakistan's boycott of the Bonn conference over a deadly Nato strike.

In a special meeting in Lahore, the cabinet had agreed to boycott the conference on the Afghan endgame in protest of Nato’s attack in Mohmand Agency that killed 24 troops in the deadliest assault in a decade.