RIYADH, 25 September — Prince Abdullah, the regent, will hold wide-ranging talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai who is visiting the Kingdom on Friday on the first leg of a three-nation Gulf tour.
Promised Saudi aid for rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan besides several issues of bilateral and regional interest will top the agenda of talks between the two leaders.
President Karzai will also visit the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which together with the Kingdom have pledged financial aid to Kabul to rebuild the country and to help its displaced population, said Afghan Ambassador Mohammed Anwar Neko here today.
The dates of his visit to other two Gulf states have not yet been confirmed.
His visit to the Kingdom is expected to last two days. The Afghan leader visited Saudi Arabia in January on his first visit to the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia has pledged $220 million over three years following a donors’ meeting held in Tokyo, co-chaired by the Kingdom. Riyadh is also a partner with Washington and Tokyo to build a $180 million road network in Afghanistan.
Kabul, according to one estimate, needs some $15 billion for the reconstruction of the country. Out of this, about $5 billion will be required within two to three years.
Saudi Arabia has also been a key player in Afghanistan’s 23 years of war, first backing rebels battling Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s and then supporting the Taleban from 1996.
Riyadh, however, froze diplomatic ties with the Taleban in 1998 to protest the presence of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and severed relations completely two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.
Ambassador Neko said “this is an important visit and an opportunity to strengthen our ties”.
He said Afghanistan would be expecting immediate release of aid from friendly countries to speed up the reconstruction process and to help the displaced persons.
