Only Russia can help Afghanistan, Karzai says

The Americans deceived everyone again at that time, former Afghan President says

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that only Russia could help Afghanistan defeat terrorism.

Speaking to NTV, Karzai said: "I understand perfectly well that if Russia builds new relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan, you can help us. Not the Britons as we kicked them out of the country several times, not the Americans as they've been killing us for 17 years, but Russia only", he added.



"We are the last barrier from terrorists. We've been fighting continuously for a century and a half," Karzai told the Russian broadcaster.

He went on to add that Moscow always helped Afghanistan, even during the Soviet invasion of the nation.  "We surely fought each other at those times, but you [Russia] used to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan," Karzai said.

The erstwhile Afghan President said the United States equivocated when positing that Al-Qaeda was a product of the Soviet invasion. "They used the war to grow al-Qaeda in Pakistani military camps. They wanted to be the only superpower and they did it. The USSR collapsed and one of the reasons was the Afghan war," he said.

"The Americans deceived everyone again at that time. What kind of war with terrorism is it? The Taliban has more and more weapons…and we can't handle them without Russia's help, because we understand that the Taliban is being fuelled from Pakistan as the group partly consists of foreigners," Karzai said.

All American explanations pertaining to its actions were composed of phrases like "in order to defend stability in the region", he said. The Afghan President said he chose to call it a day upon realising that Afghanistan was simply being used.

"People used to come to me continuously from four different provinces, saying that foreigners had come by unidentified choppers to kick them out of their building and kill them….The foreigners are much more dangerous, they called themselves 'the caliphate'. There are several thousands of them now in Afghanistan," the former Afghan President said.

Karzai also spoke about how the United States exercised total control over Afghan airspace. "Nothing flies without their permission. They have mercenaries in Afghanistan with their own army, aviation and security service. I tried to kick them out of the country, but I failed," he said.

This article originally appeared in Sputnik International.