Kabul, Afghanistan ? Afghan leader Hamid Karzai visited Iran on Sunday as the United States repeated accusations that Iran is protecting fleeing al-Qaida and Taliban members and trying to undermine the fragile Afghan administration.

U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met the Afghan prime minister for several hours and informed him of the U.S. concerns before Karzai headed for Iran on his first visit to the neighboring nation since he took office in December.

Khalilzad accused Iran of sending elite commandos, known as Sipah-e-Mohammed, or Soldiers of Mohammed, into Afghanistan to try to stir up trouble between heavily armed tribes and destabilize the Karzai administration

“What we want are normal relations between Afghanistan and Iran based on noninterference,” Khalilzad told reporters in Kabul on Sunday. “Iran should not allow al-Qaida types or Taliban to cross into Iran or for Iran to put its forces in here or assist local warlords.”

“We do expect Iran to stop this kind of action that we find objectionable,” he said. But whether Karzai broaches the U.S. concerns with the Iranian authorities is up to him, Khalilzad said.

Iran, which long opposed Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers, has denied the U.S. charges and says it supports Karzai and his government, formed in December after the Taliban’s fall.

Iranian officials have admitted the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan are porous and fighters may be crossing, but they say they are trying to catch any that are.

Karzai arrived in the Iranian capital on Sunday and was due to hold talks with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, state run Tehran radio reported.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday, Karzai said that his nation in the process of rebuilding from nearly nothing after years of war wanted good relations with all its neighbors based on the principle of noninterference.

“We are just a poor people trying to remake our lives,” Karzai said.

“We just want to have good relations with our neighbors and great relations with America. America helped us free ourselves so we value that relationship and we also want to be friendly with our neighbors,” he said.

Afghans routinely complain bitterly about being pawns in larger regional disputes. Many of its neighbors seek influence within its borders, often through local warlords in the highly factionalized country.

Many within Karzai’s administration have been deeply critical of Pakistan for its support for the Taliban after the hard-line Islamic militia came to power in 1996. Islamabad abruptly ended its backing for the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and gave its support to Washington’s war on terrorism.

During a visit to Pakistan earlier this month, Karzai said he wanted to bury the past with Islamabad but stressed his administration’s demand that its neighbors stop their interference.