Pakistan should stop terrorists crossing to Afghanistan: Karzai

Afghan president says we want strategic pact with Pakistan but we want some conditions and preconditions.


Afp October 04, 2012

KABUL: Addressing the possibility of signing a strategic pact with Pakistan, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said Pakistan “should stop terrorists, suicide bombers crossing to Afghanistan."

"We are happy to have strategic relations with Pakistan. We want this strategic pact with Pakistan. But we want some conditions and preconditions from Pakistan,” Karzai told a press conference.

"If these conditions are met - terrorism is stopped, extremism is dismantled, anti-Afghan activities are stopped, destruction of Afghanistan is stopped, friendship starts between the two countries which hasn't happened so far - then a strategic pact would be signed between Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.

Afghan future predictions

Karzai criticised Western media for gloomy predictions about Afghanistan's future once US-led foreign forces withdraw from the war against Taliban insurgents in 2014.

"This is a psychological war by the Western media against Afghanistan: once the foreign troops pull out, Afghanistan will be poor, there will be civil war and the Taliban will return, etcetera," Karzai told a news conference.

The president said he had raised the issue with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a visit to the United States for the UN General Assembly last week.

"I believe if the objective is to influence future agreements on the number of US military bases, the presence of US troops beyond 2014 - it can't achieve this through psychological war," he said.

The United States has said it does not seek permanent bases in Afghanistan, but is expected to keep a small force in the country after 2014 for counter-terror operations. Details have not yet been agreed.

Karzai mentioned in particular The New York Times, BBC and CNN, adding, however, that "unfortunately, local media, television and radios and analysts are also predicting civil war in Afghanistan once foreign troops pull out".

Respected Afghan expert Gilles Dorronsoro of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is just one among many analysts who have predicted renewed strife in Afghanistan.

"After 2014, the level of US support for the Afghan regime will be limited and, after a new phase in the civil war, a Taliban victory will likely follow," he wrote recently.

COMMENTS (33)

Ahsan Nadeem | 11 years ago | Reply

Secondly that Afghanistan guy who posted a comment above is so well informed My Pakistani brothers lets clap for the guy, he's as informed as their president! :P

Man you rock!! :P

You should totally join the Taliban perhaps half of them may actually die of nonsense :P

Ahsan Nadeem | 11 years ago | Reply

Man he's one funny guy :D He lived in Pakistan all his life in Quetta city because obviously Afghanistan was never a nation worth living in with peace! How can the U.S take him seriously?? Pakistan has helped Afghanistan since 1947 that's how we get repaid! Pakistan provides Afghanistan with a port they can use to trade(still active) and they provide us with Taliban and Al-Qaeda and say they always lived in Pakistan..(are u kidding me?)

2nd largest refugee movement in the history of the world was from Afghanistan to Pakistan and they repay us by robbing our people, killing, spreading terrorism, bombing and bringing drugs with them to sell to Pakistan and even taking our jobs!

Karzai come on! you gotta be kidding me!!!

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