Karzai flew out of Kabul hours after telling a meeting of donors to his war-scarred nation, "I'm going there with a lot of hope, with tremendous desire to have peace in this region."

"Afghanistan is going to Turkey with a very clean heart, with a great desire. I hope it will be responded to and reciprocated," Karzai said.

The relationship between the two leaders has been soured over recriminations about the growing extremist violence on both sides of their shared border.

"We are all suffering, it's not Afghanistan, it's not Pakistan alone, it's all the region suffering," Karzai said.

"The fight against terror is becoming even more important, and the cooperation between all of us in this regard becomes more important."

The Taliban movement that was toppled from government in Afghanistan more than five years ago is waging an insurgency that is supported by other Islamic extremists.

Karzai has been joined by some Western figures in accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to round up Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders living there and to crack down on extremist groups training and funding militants.

Kabul has been particularly critical of Islamabad's failure to stop militants from crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan to carry out attacks, despite saying it had deployed 80,000 troops on the border.

This led Musharraf to announce late last year plans to fence 35 kilometres (22 miles) of the 2,500-kilometre frontier, angering Afghanistan which says it would do nothing to stop militants and would divide families living on both sides.

Kabul, which does not recognise the border drawn up by colonial Britain in 1893, has written to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon to express "deep concern."

Musharraf and Karzai are scheduled to attend a dinner in Ankara late Sunday hosted by Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, followed by a formal round of bilateral talks on today.