Afghanistan's Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin talks on the phone before an interview in Kabul March 27, 2013. 
 
 KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan is shocked by Pakistan's "complacency" in the nascent Afghan peace process and is ready to work without Islamabad's help on reconciliation, Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin told Reuters on Wednesday. 
 
 It was the first time Afghanistan has suggested the possibility of going it alone without its neighbor. Regional power Pakistan is seen as critical to stabilizing Afghanistan because of its long ties to insurgent groups. 
 
 Ludin also said the government would look to senior Taliban figures recently handed over by the United States in Bagram prison to urge militants to pursue peace. He did not elaborate. 
 
 Afghan officials had been pushing Pakistan hard to encourage the Taliban and other groups to join reconciliation efforts and Kabul had spoken of progress after Islamabad released some Taliban prisoners who could promote peace. 
 
 But Ludin, widely believed to shape foreign policy, told Reuters in an interview that Afghanistan had noted a shift in Pakistan's position towards peace efforts that are gaining more urgency as foreign forces prepare to leave by the end of 2014. 
 
 "We here in Kabul are in a bit of a state of shock at once again being confronted by the depth of Pakistan's complacency, we are just very disappointed," he said. 
 
 "But what has happened in the last few months for us, (we)see that Pakistan is changing the goal post every time we reach understanding." 
 
 Afghanistan also said it had canceled a military trip to Pakistan due to "unacceptable Pakistani shelling" of the country's mountainous eastern borderlands. 
 
 More than two dozen Pakistani artillery shells were fired into Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar on Monday and Tuesday. The cancellation of the trip and days of angry diplomatic exchanges have placed further strain on a fraught relationship. 
 
 Afghanistan expressed its concern about what it called Pakistan's attempt to sideline President Hamid Karzai's government to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to Kabul this week, said Ludin. 
 
 The deputy foreign minister, who is closely involved in peace efforts, said Afghanistan insisted that its High Peace Council, formed by Karzai, should spearhead any peace efforts. 
 
 Ludin said Pakistan had been trying to get the Taliban to talk to other parties, like the opposition, something he said would reverse gains. 
 
 "Suddenly, there is a new notion of the peace process now being introduced by Pakistan and that's 'well why should the Taliban talk to President Karzai or the High Peace Council?'" said Ludin. "They (Taliban) should in fact talk to other political parties. That's what they have told us," Ludin said. 
 
 "Pakistan's concept of the peace process is one that will reverse the achievement of the last 10 years that will negate the centrality of the Afghan state." 
 
 Although there have been several meetings in Western capitals over the last few months in which representatives of the Taliban met Afghan peace negotiators, there are no signs of any breakthrough. 
 
 RENEWED TENSIONS 
 
 Karzai is due to visit the Gulf Arab state of Qatar soon to discuss the opening of a Taliban office that could be used for peace contacts in the future. 
 
 Kabul has long been suspicious of Pakistan's intentions, accusing it of harboring the Taliban leadership in the city of Quetta, and using militants as proxies to counter the influence of rival India in Afghanistan. 
 
 But a few months ago, Kabul was encouraged after Pakistan released some Afghan Taliban prisoners from its jails. 
 
 Now relations seem to have taken a sharp turn for the worse as the United States winds down the war, now in its 12th year. 
 
 This week, Pakistani officials accused Karzai of being an impediment to the peace process. 
 
 Ludin suggested Pakistan wanted Afghanistan to remain unstable so that militant groups allegedly backed by Islamabad would be in a position to capitalize on instability after 2014. 
 
 "What they would like is again a fragmentation of the Afghan state and going back to the drawing board so that they can have another 10 years, at least another decade, of weak, compromised Afghan state," he said. 
 
 Ludin stressed that Pakistan was a pivotal player and Afghanistan would still welcome its support. 
 
 "The sad reality is though Pakistan still remains the most important missing link in this whole vision that we have," he said. 
 
 Karzai had worked too hard and taken too many political risks to let Pakistan dictate how peace efforts should proceed, Ludin said. 
 
 "He (Karzai) has spent his political capital on this, he has basically staked his own political capital, his own reputation, on this and he has really mobilized the whole country, the whole region in support of the process," said Ludin. 
 
 "It is laughable, laughable if Pakistanis think that the whole notion of the President Karzai is impediment to peace." 
 
 Karzai's government, he said, would now turn to some of the most senior, hardcore Taliban leaders behind bars in Bagram in its quest for peace. 
 
 "We will try to appeal to them and say: 'Look, continued reluctance of Taliban to stay away from peace process and any buy in to this whole Pakistani design that they should not to speak to the Afghan government, is dangerous,'" said Ludin. 
 
 "Now that we have them we will see who is ready to help in this process." 
 
 (Reporting by Michael Georgy and Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Ron Popeski) 

 ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's intelligence agency has accused the Afghan government of supporting Taliban splinter groups. 
 
 In a report presented to Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, the ISI agency alleged President Hamid Karzai’s administration was in league with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement, known collectively as the TTS. 
 
 The report suggested the "recent nexus of TTS with Afghan government is likely to enhance the terrorist activities" in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border such as Mohman, Bajaur, Dir, Swat and Chitral. 
 
 Jason Reed / Reuters Secretary of State John Kerry, left, listens to Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai during their joint news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul on Thursday. 
 
 Anti-Pakistan elements, particularly from across the border in Afghanistan, had provided "strong support" in terms of money, logistics and training and this was “one of the main factors for increased militancy,” the report said. 
 
 However, it added that the Taliban’s ability to act "at will and to face security forces openly has been substantially curtailed." 
 
 The report said that internal rifts within the main Pakistani Taliban group had led to the creation of splinter groups. 
 
 "TTS, after having been dislodged from area, has resorted to [suicide bomb and improvised explosive device] attacks" on law-enforcement agencies and other officials, the report said. 
 
 The court is considering a case involving seven people who are being kept in one of several internment centers in the border area, despite being acquitted by an anti-terrorism court because of lack of evidence against them. 
 
 The ISI report was submitted to justify the internment centers and military operations against militants more generally. 
 
 The ISI said it was not going to release people held at the internment centers, warning that the detainees included terrorists who could go to cities like Islamabad and Lahore and launch attacks. 
 
 It said that 3,871 Pakistani security personnel, more than 3,000 militants and more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in the border area in the last five years. 
 
 There had been 235 suicide attacks, 9,257 rocket attacks and 4,256 bombings during the same period, the report added. 
 
 Afghanistan and Pakistan have a difficult relationship. 
 
 Islamabad has accused Kabul of failing to stop anti-government militants from operating from mountain havens in Afghanistan, while Kabul has blamed Pakistan’s military for cross-border shelling. 
 
 U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel responds to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's statements in which Karzai accused the U.S. and Taliban with working together. 
 
 In September, Afghanistan’s foreign minister told the United Nations Security Council that diplomatic ties with Pakistan were under threat. 
 
 The Afghan foreign ministry declined to comment on the ISI report. 
 
 Earlier this month, Karzai claimed that the Taliban was carrying out attacks in Afghanistan "in service of America." 
 
 On Monday, after a private meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry in Kabul, Karzai insisted he had not meant to suggest that the United States was colluding with the Taliban, Reuters reported. 
 
 "I never used the word 'collusion' between the Taliban and the U.S. Those were not my words. Those were the [words] picked up by the media," he said. 
 
 Kerry said the two men had discussed the matter but he played it down, Reuters reported. "I am confident that the president absolutely does not believe that the United States has any interest except to see the Taliban come to the table to make peace." 
 
 NBC News' Akbar Shinwari and Reuters contributed to this report. 
 
 Related: 
 
 Taliban threat forces Pakistan's Musharraf to cancel welcome rally 
 
 Karzai accuses US and Taliban of conspiring to keep troops in Afghanistan 
 

– The rift between Pakistan and Afghanistan appears to be growing. Pakistani intelligence yesterday accused Hamid Karzai's administration of working with Taliban groups allied with Pakistan's main Taliban faction, Tehrik-e-Taliban. In testimony before Pakistan's Supreme Court, the ISI said elements from Afghanistan were providing "strong support" for the Taliban, including money, logistics, and training, NBC News reports, and that the alliance with the Afghan government was "likely to enhance terrorist activities." But meanwhile, Afghan officials tell Reuters that Pakistan has been so useless in the Afghan peace process that they've decided to push forward without their neighbor's help. "We here in Kabul are in a bit of a state of shock at once again being confronted by the depth of Pakistan's complacency," a deputy foreign minister says. "Pakistan is changing the goal post every time we reach understanding." He said the government would work with Taliban prisoners in the just-handed-over Bagram prison to help negotiate a peace deal.