Kabul - Some Afghan insurgent leaders who are not part of the al-Qaeda network should be removed from a United Nations blacklist so as to boost reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday.

Speaking to reporters in a press conference at his presidential palace, Karzai also said that his government and the international community must seek the assistance of some Islamic countries in order to accelerate the peace process with the militants.

Moscow, Mar. 28 : Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that Pakistan is committed to play a main role in stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan.

“Pakistan has a central role in facilitating the stabilization process in Afghanistan, and we remain deeply committed to this goal,” The Nation quoted him, as saying.

Addressing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Special Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan in Moscow, Qureshi said that it was Pakistan’s priority to have a peaceful, stable and united Afghanistan.

Moscow  - Russia, Iran and Central Asian states called Friday for Afghanistan's neighbours to coordinate their efforts and be more actively engaged in helping the country fight terrorism and drug- trafficking.

The comments at a Russia-sponsored summit on Afghanistan seemed targeted at alerting Washington just four days before a broader UN- led conference that it must play more attention to the interests of regional powers in strategy planning.

Hluboka Castle, Czech Republic  - The European Union on Friday welcomed US President Barack Obama's revised strategy for Afghanistan and vowed to contribute to a "civilian surge" with more money and more trainers.

"(We heard) a very important speech, a very important analysis ... we have a lot of points in common," the EU's top foreign policy official, Javier Solana, told the German Press Agency dpa on the sidelines of a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in the Czech Republic.

Kabul - An Afghan army soldier killed two US-led coalition soldiers and wounded a third before shooting himself to death in northern Afghanistan on Friday, the US military said.

"One coalition service member was killed today, another died of wounds, and a third was wounded by an Afghan National Army soldier who reportedly fired upon them," the US military said in statement, adding that the Afghan soldier killed himself immediately after the shooting.

New York - The United Nations' role in Afghanistan is expected to increase in order to meet the new strategy launched by US President Barack Obama on Friday to deal with terrorism and the al-Qaeda network in that country, a senior US official said.

The official, who briefed some UN-based correspondents Friday on the new US Afghan strategy on background only, said the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) will assume a "very important role the stabilization and development."

"UNAMA will have a critical role," the official said.