Wary neighbors Pakistan and Afghanistan have achieved a "new environment" of trust that will help them fight cross-border Islamist militants, Pakistan''s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta met in Washington before talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of a review of U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"There is a new environment between Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Qureshi. "The trust level, the confidence between the two countries, has increased manifold," he added.

Spanta said relations between the neighboring states, which in the past had deteriorated to mutual blame and public bickering over responsibility for border incursions by militants, had "remarkably improved." The two spoke to reporters after meeting at a hotel.

Ties have also been strained by widespread belief that some elements of Pakistan''s powerful intelligence agency fuel conflict by backing Taliban militants waging an insurgency against Afghanistan''s western-backed government. Islamabad denies this.

"The Afghanistan government has confidence in the leadership in Pakistan," Spanta said after receiving an explanation and assurances from Qureshi about a new Pakistani policy for countering an insurgency in the Swat region in northwest Pakistan.