Pakistan's leader vowed to prevent terrorists from staging attacks from Pakistani territory to disrupt landmark Afghan national elections set for October, Pakistan's state-run news agency reported.
President General Pervez Musharraf offered the assurance after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai who completes a two-day official visit to Pakistan on Tuesday.
Bilateral relations have often been strained by allegations that Taliban and al-Qaeda rebels stage cross-border attacks against Karzai's government from Pakistan soil.
"Anybody trying to carry out terrorist activities in Afghanistan or to disrupt the election process, or to create law and order problems will not be allowed" to use our territory against Afghanistan, Musharraf said late Monday.
"We will act against them," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency.
Musharraf and Karzai said they have a ``common commitment to stamp out terrorism" and "strengthen capability and cooperation in the field of intelligence and the forces on ground," state media reported.
Both nations are beset by suicide bombings and other attacks instigated by militants opposed to the two leaders for supporting the US-led war on terrorism.
Musharraf has escaped several assassination attempts, and his government said over the weekend it had arrested a dozen people nationwide who were part of an al-Qaeda-linked plot to stage suicide attacks on key government leaders and the US Embassy.
The Afghan president canceled a scheduled morning speech to the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. A Pakistani intelligence source said security officials who traveled with Karzai from Afghanistan would not give security clearance.
He is still due to meet later Tuesday with Pakistani Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and other senior officials.
At home, Karzai is facing a stubborn Taliban insurgency that threatens presidential elections scheduled for Oct. 9. More than 30 election workers and civilians have been killed during months of voter registration, and more attacks are feared during campaigning for the nation's first free vote.
Afghan officials previously accused Pakistan's government of not doing enough to crack down on insurgents in its western tribal regions, but Pakistan has stepped up offensives along the frontier this year, leaving scores of militants and soldiers dead.
Musharraf said Pakistan is moving "very strongly against al-Qaeda terrorists in the tribal area" bordering Afghanistan.
"We know that they are on the run, they are dispersed and displaced from a number of valleys which were their sanctuaries," he said, adding that peace in Afghanistan is in the interests of both countries.
The two countries also plan to expand economic ties, with Pakistan saying it will help in Afghanistan's reconstruction after a quarter century of war.
Pakistan used to support the Taliban regime but switched sides after the Sept. 11 attacks, supporting Washington as a US-led coalition of forces drove the hardline Islamic militia from power in late 2001.
During Karzai's visit, officials said Pakistan would request release of 400 Pakistanis who are being held in Afghan jails -- mostly men who went to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban during the US-led offensive.
This week, a UN human rights expert called for Afghanistan to release an estimated 725 Taliban fighters taken prisoner in 2001, saying they are held in "inhumane" conditions and that there is no legal basis to continue their imprisonment.
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