Iran row overshadows Afghan conference

A conference meant to show governments would unite to support Afghanistan was overshadowed before it started by a row between the United States and Iran after Tehran said on Sunday it had shot down a US reconnaissance drone in its airspace.

The one-day international meeting on Monday had already been undermined by a boycott by Pakistan, embroiled in its own row with the United States over NATO air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on its border with Afghanistan on Nov. 26.

Iranian state television quoted a military source as saying Tehran had shot down a US spy drone in eastern Iran.

"The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders," the military source said, without elaborating.

Iran has been accused by Western diplomats in the past of providing low-level support to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

Tehran, at loggerheads with the United States over its nuclear programme, denies backing the Taliban.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi held talks in Bonn with his German counterpart on Sunday, but made no comment to reporters.

A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that "some elements are trying to overshadow the success of the Bonn conference on Afghanistan". But spokesman Aimal Faizi stressed the drone incident had nothing to do with the conference.

The conference in Bonn, former capital of West Germany, takes place a decade after a first Bonn conference on Afghanistan, which ended in high hopes for its future.

But with concern about Afghanistan descending into civil war after most foreign combat troops leave in 2014, the mood was already sober even before the rows with Pakistan and Iran erupted.

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