Islamabad, June 27 (ANI): Pakistan should withdraw its support from the Haqqani Network and begin negotiating peace with Afghanistan as a major initiative in the wake of a drawdown of U. S. forces by 2014, said an editorial in a Pakistani daily.

The editorial stated that Pakistan's insistence to have a major part in the endgame cannot materialise unless there is a realisation that Pakistan has equal stakes in bringing stability to Afghanistan.

It said Pakistan is demanding from Afghanistan the same that the latter has been repeatedly requesting-eliminating militants from the safe havens in the border region. The impasse in relations between Pakistan and the U.S. most recently came when an attack on a hotel in Kabul was traced to the Haqqani network that the U.S. believes are supported by the Pakistan army, it said.

Three cross-border violations in a week have strained the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The killing of 15 Pakistani soldiers, with four missing, in Dir by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from their hideouts in Afghanistan is a grim reminder that the perpetrators of terrorism operating along both sides of the border are undermining the efforts of bringing peace and stability to the region, the editorial stated.

Pakistan has so far failed in its repeated attempts to convince the Afghan government to come down hard on militants fleeing Pakistan in 2009, who have found safe havens in the eastern Afghan provinces, especially after the pulling out of U.S. forces from the area last year, it said.

The U.S., in its desire to see Afghan forces less reliant on foreign forces after 2014, wants Pakistan to dissociate from militancy, for which Pakistan has to make some tough choices; the biggest being breaking the back of extremists who kill innocents in the name of a religion that they do not understand, it concluded. (ANI)