Killing Hakimullah: Karzai criticises timing of strike

Karzai hopes the peace process, still at an embryonic stage, does not suffer as a result.

ISLAMABAD: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticised the timing of a US drone strike that killed the TTP chief on Friday after an angry Islamabad expressed fears the death would undermine planned peace talks. Karzai added his voice to the criticism, telling a US Congress delegation visiting Kabul that the drone strike “took place at an unsuitable time,” his office said in a statement. The statement said Karzai hoped the peace process, still at an embryonic stage, did not suffer as a result. “The president said he hoped that the attack the other day on the leader of the Pakistani Taliban was not harming the peace process in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” it read.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 5^th, 2013.