(Fixes dateline) (For more on Afghanistan, click on [ID:nAFPAK]) KABUL, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt met Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday, aiming to mend ties between Kabul and the European Union strained by a fraud-tainted election and what Bildt called a "difficult" few months. Bildt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, became the most senior official from a Western state to visit since Karzai's re-election was announced last week, despite a U.N.-backed probe finding more than a quarter of Karzai's votes were fake. Bildt said he aimed to kickstart an EU plan for aid to Afghanistan and get a better understanding of Afghan politics after the "difficult developments of the last few months". "My visit here is a follow-up on the action plan for Afghanistan which we have just now taken from the EU, and which we now need to start to implement step by step," Bildt wrote on his blog. He was to meet Karzai as well as opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah, who was second behind Karzai in the Aug. 20 poll but withdrew on Nov. 1 from a planned second round citing fraud concerns, paving the way for Karzai to be declared the winner. Karzai is due to be sworn in for his second term later this month, and a number of foreign dignitaries are expected to attend. The election has hurt Karzai's reputation among Western countries that have nearly 110,000 troops defending his government from a growing Taliban insurgency. The souring of relations has come at a particularly sore time, with U.S. President Barack Obama poised to reach a decision on whether to send tens of thousands more troops. U.S., European and U.N. officials have said Karzai must do more to limit corruption and improve his government's performance in his next term. Kabul has complained about such remarks, describing them as inappropriate meddling. In an interview with U.S. television at the weekend, Karzai said the practices of Western countries -- which spend billions of dollars in Afghanistan mainly through private contractors -- were partly to blame for corruption in Afghanistan. (Reporting by Peter Graff and Hamid Shalizi in KABUL, and Nick Vinocur in STOCKHOLM; Editing by Paul Tait) (For more Reuters coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/afghanistanpakistan)
The shadow of U.S. Army Lieutenant Matthew Asmus of A-BTRY 2/377 PFAR Task Force Steel playing golf is cast at FOB Tillman, Afghanistan, November 10, 2009. REUTERS/Bruno Domingos (AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT MILITARY ...
