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Summary
US President Barack Obama praised Wednesday the broad and deepening US partnership with Afghanistan and Pakistan and said he and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai had renewed their goal to defeat Al-Qaeda.The two leaders met to mend fences, after months of trading barbs over alleged vote-rigging and corruption in Karzai's government. As we have seen in recent plots here in the United States, Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies continue to plot in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan and a growing Taliban insurgency could mean an even larger safe haven for Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Obama said after White House talks. So today we are reaffirming our shared goal, to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both leaders appeared to have aired their own concerns in their talks, which come as the United States boosts the number of US forces in Afghanistan fighting a deadly Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgency. We discussed in quite a lot of detail and in a very frank and productive manner the issues of protection of civilians and with respect to the judicial independence of Afghanistan, Karzai told a joint White House press conference.
