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Taliban revival blamed on foreign forces

They did not focus on terrorist sanctuaries despite warnings, says Hamid Karzai

New Delhi: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has sought to put the blame for the resurgence of the Taliban in his country on the international community, saying it did not focus on “sanctuaries of terrorists” despite warnings in this regard since 2003.

Mr. Karzai was participating in Karan Thapar’s ‘India Tonight’ programme on CNBC.

He also sounded critical of the international forces in Afghanistan, saying local people in some areas were troubled by the arrest and searches of their homes by “foreign forces” and wanted an end to these.

He expressed readiness to reach out to Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Omar, saying he would talk to him if he abandoned violence and regretted what he had done.

Asked why the International Stabilisation Forces of Afghanistan were not targeting the “safe sanctuaries,” he said it may be because the foreign countries still are “on the road of the 1980s, when we were fighting the Soviet. In other words, may be they are still looking at Afghanistan from a different perspective.... That perhaps is hindering the allies from going to the sanctuaries.”

“My advice to them and our partners in the international community would be that there is no way in which we can win the war against terrorism unless and until Afghanistan is viewed as a sovereign state with a territory, with interests and detached from other interests that some of our partners have in this region.”

Asked whether he was getting fed up that the foreign forces did not seem to understand his view, he said: “The Afghan people have gone through three decades of extreme suffering, instability and interference from the Soviet Union, from the neighbours of Afghanistan, particularly some neighbours and even from the countries beyond Afghanistan.”

On reports that he was ready to “embrace” Mullah Omar and Taliban forces, he said he would not “embrace” them but “will go to them as an Afghan and try my best to seek solutions, to urge them, to remind them that what they are doing is actually hurting their own people, country and home.”

Asked about Mullah Omar specifically, he said, “If he repents, if he recognises, if he makes a clear statement that he will accept the Afghan constitution and that he has not had any hand in the killing of Afghan people. If he denies that he is not behind all these things, I am ready to talk to him.”

On the recent assassination bid on him, Mr. Karzai admitted that it was a result of “negligences on our part.”

He admitted that the Taliban could have infiltrated the Afghan security forces and said “we have to keep trying to find solutions to that.”

On Pakistan’s recent peace deal with the Taliban, he said the agreement should not compromise his country’s interests, failing which Kabul would be “extremely angry.”

He also disapproved of reported moves by Pakistan to hold talks with Betullah Mehsud, prime accused in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. If the peace deal put Afghanistan at risk, he would raise the issue with the leadership in Islamabad.

On demands from western nations for India to join the international forces in Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said it was for New Delhi and the world community to decide on the matter.

Suggesting that he was trying to have a balance in Kabul’s relations with India and Pakistan, he said he would not take a step that would bring “more rivalries in the region.” — PTI

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