Afghan President Hamid Karzai who is on his three-day official visit in Paris asked Wednesday Pakistan to extradite the captured chief spokesman of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime.

"Obviously, we are very pleased to see that the Pakistani authorities have arrested this individual who is responsible for so many atrocities in Afghanistan," he added in an interview with French news channel LCI.

"We are very grateful to the Pakistani authorities to have taken these measures and arrested this spokesman," he added.

Abdul Latif Hakimi has been the Taliban's mouthpiece since early 2004 and frequently spoke with the international media to claim responsibility for attacks on Afghan and US-led forces.

Hakimi was arrested Tuesday in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, which shares a long and rugged border with Afghanistan.

Karzai finished his first foreign visit to France, where he attended the 33rd general assembly of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and met with French high officials.

He thanked France for its generous moral, material and technical help after the fall of the Taliban regime late 2001, especially in the fields of education and protection of cultural patrimony.

"Today Afghanistan's success is the result of cooperation between peoples of different parties in the world and constitutes a real example of cooperation between civilizations," he said.

French leaders, especially President Jacques Chirac, ensured that Paris would continue its military and civil help for stability and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan.

Source: Xinhua