KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on the Taleban yesterday to fight Afghanistan’s enemies in what was widely seen as a swipe against Pakistan days after the neighbors’ security forces clashed on their border.
Karzai’s remarks are likely to unsettle already shaky ties with Pakistan and come as the United States wants Pakistan to help Afghanistan persuade the Taleban to engage in peace talks ahead of the withdrawal of most foreign troops by the end of next year.
“Instead of destroying their own country, they should turn their weapons against places where plots are made against Afghan prosperity,” Karzai said in the capital, Kabul, saying this was “a reminder for the Taleban.”
“They should stand with this young man who was martyred and defend their soil,” he said, referring to a border policeman who was killed in the Wednesday night clash on eastern Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Two Pakistani soldiers were wounded.
Hundreds of men took to the streets of the eastern Afghan town of Asadabad yesterday, near where the clash took place, to protest against both Pakistan and the United States.
Karzai also said that the CIA’s station chief in Kabul has assured him that regular funding the US intelligence agency gives his government will not be cut off.
He said the Afghan government had been receiving funds from CIA for more than a decade as part of regular monthly assistance from the US government.
Karzai had earlier confirmed that his government had received such payments following a story published in The New York Times that said the CIA had given the Afghan National Security Council tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags.
“The help and assistance from the US is for our National Directorate of Security. That is state-to-state, government-to-government regular assistance,” Karzai said. “So that is a government institution helping another government institution, and we appreciate all this assistance and help, all this assistance is very useful for us. We have spent it in different areas (and) solved lots of our problems.” Karzai would not say how much assistance his government had received because it was being used for intelligence work, but acknowledged it was in cash and that “all the money which we have spent, receipts have been sent back to the intelligence service of the United States monthly.” He claimed that much of the money was used to care for wounded employees of the NDS, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, and operational expenses.
“It is an official government deal between the two governments. This is happening all over the world — such deals between governments — and in Afghanistan, which is a needy country, these sorts of deals are very important and useful,” he said at the news conference, held to announce the results of his recent trip to Europe.
Karzai confirmed the payments during a news conference earlier this week in Helsinki, Finland. After Karzai’s confirmation in Europe, White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment on the newspaper report, referring questions to the CIA, which also declined comment.
In his gathering with reporters at the presidential palace, Karzai said he had met earlier in the day with the Kabul station chief of the CIA.
He added that negotiations for a new bilateral security agreement with the United States had been delayed because of conditions that Afghanistan had placed on such a deal. The security agreement is to govern a US military presence after 2014 when nearly all foreign combat troops are to have finished their withdrawal from Afghanistan. The talks, which started in late 2012, are set to last up to a year.
5 troops killed
NATO says five members of the US-led international military coalition have been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan — the first foreign troops killed this month around the country.
In a statement, NATO said the five were killed yesterday. It provided no other details, or the nationalities of those killed.
Such information is usually released after families are notified.
With the deaths, 47 members of the coalition have been killed so far this year, including 32 Americans.
Three British soldiers were killed on April 30 when their armored vehicle hit a bomb in southern Helmand province.
