Expressing grave concern over alleged infiltration of militants and shelling from Pakistan on border provinces of Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai on Thursday outlined Afghanistan’s “preconditions” for a strategic pact with Pakistan, including effective measures by Islamabad to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and suicide bombers into his country.
“I believe that US war on terror will not be successful as it is being fought on Afghan villages, rather than targeting the militant hideouts and compounds in neighbouring countries,” President Karzai said on Thursday, without mentioning Pakistan, while addressing a press conference in Kabul following attendance at the UN General Assembly session in New York.
Besides addressing the UN General Assembly, Karzai also met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari during his stay in United States.
Karzai said Kabul’s preconditions for the strategic pact with Islamabad included an end to interference in Afghan affairs. In this respect, he also diverted attention towards frequent acts of mortar shelling on civilian population in Kunar province of Afghanistan allegedly from the Pakistani side.
According to the Afghan president, the shelling was costing lives to innocent people, including women and children. “The root causes of the deaths of our children and instability (in Afghanistan) must be eliminated first,” he stressed. Karzai said Afghanistan would sign the agreement only when Pakistan met the conditions and stopped training and sending militants into Afghanistan. He recalled that he had discussed Afghanistan’s terms at a trilateral meeting with Zardari and British Prime Minister David Cameron on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week.
President Karzai, however, said “Work on reaching an agreement would proceed gradually, promising that any strategic pact Afghanistan signed with a foreign country, whether it was Pakistan, Iran, India or the US, would take into account Afghanistan’s interests.” Referring to Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential elections, Karzai said, “Any kind of elections, even with continuation or regularities, are better than an illegal government.”
He quoted an oft-used line that he would not remain in office even a day beyond of his legal term, which ends in 2014, and that presidential elections would be held on time. However, Karzai made it clear that “foreigners” should not interfere in the electoral process as they did during the previous presidential and parliamentary elections. Karzai said his country’s 2014 presidential election would be held on time even though the voting would coincide with the withdrawal of US and NATO combat troops from Afghanistan.
Strategic pact when cross-border attacks end, Karzai tells Pakistan
