Islamabad: Pakistan has no favorite among the candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election this week, but wants a credible result in the interests of its neighbor's stability, a Pakistani minister said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking re-election in Thursday's polls and is facing a stiff challenge from former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
"Pakistan has been pursuing a hands-off policy," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told reporters on Tuesday, adding he had conveyed that in talks with visiting US envoy to the region Richard Holbrooke.
"We have no favorites ... and we will accept the democratic decision of the people of Afghanistan," he said.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been uneasy neighbors since shortly after Pakistan's creation in 1947, but greater cooperation between them in seen as a vital part of US President Barack Obama's strategy against Islamist militancy.
"It is important that the results of the Afghan election are accepted by the people of Afghanistan and the international community because linked to this is the post-election stability," Qureshi said.
"Pakistan has an interest in a peaceful, stable Afghanistan."
Pakistan has a long history of involvement in Afghanistan, particularly since the 1980s when, with US and Saudi Arabian support, it backed Islamist guerrillas battling Soviet occupiers.
Pakistan later nurtured the Taliban, who emerged in the early 1990s in the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal.
Pakistan maintained that support until shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States carried out by the Taliban's al Qaeda allies.
SUSPICION
Relations have been strained at times since 2001, largely because of suspicion in Afghanistan that Pakistan has maintained its support for the Taliban.
Afghan analysts and some politicians say Pakistan, preoccupied with its rivalry with nuclear-armed neighbor India, would rather see a weak Afghanistan than a strong government in Kabul run by forces close to New Delhi.
Relations between Afghanistan and India have blossomed since 2001 and India is one of Afghanistan's biggest aid donors.
Pakistan, battling Islamist militants in its northwest near the Afghan border, denies backing the Taliban.
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have improved since Asif Ali Zardari became Pakistani president in 2008. His predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, was at times not even on speaking terms with Karzai.
Pakistan's liberal Daily Times newspaper said suspicion of Karzai lingered but things would be no better for Pakistan if Abdullah won the vote.
"Our security establishment thinks he is not good for us because he has allowed over 4,000 Indians to work in his country and build infrastructure under cover of doing mischief in Baluchistan," the newspaper said of Karzai in an editorial.
Pakistan says India is backing separatist guerrillas in its energy-rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan.
"But, truthfully, we have no alternative to Mr Karzai except the Taliban. And Taliban have never listened to us, even when eating out of our hands."
"Whoever wins the elections should be good enough for us if he is good enough for the Afghans," the newspaper said.
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