NATO says cooperation with Pakistan "best ever"

By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL, Nov 23 (Reuters) - NATO said on Sunday cooperation between its troops in Afghanistan and the Pakistani army is the best it has ever been, as the two forces hit Taliban insurgents in a coordinated operation from both sides of the border.

Tension has risen between Pakistan and Western forces in Afghanistan in recent months over increased U.S. missile strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda militants on the Pakistani side of the mountainous, porous border.

But operations launched by NATO forces in Afghanistan's northeastern Kunar province and by Pakistani troops in the adjacent Bajaur district on the other side of the border represented a new level of cooperation, the spokesman said.

"The cooperation with the Pakistani forces is ... the best it has ever been," said Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

The cooperation was the result of tripartite meetings between ISAF, the Afghan military and Pakistani forces, he said.

"This is not only a cooperation in the execution. This is also a cooperation that has happened in the planning," Blanchette said.

The pressure on Taliban militants on both sides of the border may hamper the insurgents' usual winter withdrawal from Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal regions, analysts say.

Washington and its NATO allies have been trying to foster cooperation between neighbours Afghanistan and Pakistan since the emergence of a civilian government in Islamabad and the election of Asif Ali Zardari as president there in September.