NATO’s exit strategy from Afghanistan will dominate a crucial summit starting today.
Arriving in Portugal for the talks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai will hear plans to withdraw most of the 150,000 foreign troops within four years.
Posts Tagged ‘Hamid Karzai’
NATO set to endorse Afghan exit plans
November 19th, 2010 |
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“U.S. should cut back Afghan operations”
November 15th, 2010 |
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Afghanistan’s president says he wants the United States to reduce the visibility and intensity of its military operations in his country. In an interview Sunday in The Washington Post, Hamid Karzai said he wants the U.S. to stop night raids, which he says aggravate Afghans and could incite people to join the Taliban insurgency. The newspaper reports that the Afghan president is seeking veto power over those nighttime operations.
Karzai wants Pak, US “to do more†on insurgent sanctuaries
November 15th, 2010 |
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Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has said that he wants the Pakistan government and the United States “to do more†on the insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan. When asked what should be done by the United States to address the sanctuaries in Pakistan, Karzai said: “Sanctuaries (are) a problem. A serious problem. For Afghanistan, now also for [...]
Karzai holds ‘secret talks’ with Taliban to contain Haqqani network
November 1st, 2010 |
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Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has reportedly held a secret meeting with three Taliban leaders in an effort to weaken the Haqqani network. Jalaluddin Haqqani, a commander in the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets, leads the Haqqani movement. The network, based in the North Waziristan’s tribal area along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, is thought to [...]
Karzai reaches out to Taliban
October 8th, 2010 |
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai used the anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan to open the inaugural session of a peace council. VOA reports that the council was appointed to help reconcile with the Taliban and other militant groups.
White House could cancel Karzai visit
April 7th, 2010 |
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The White House said Tuesday it would consider cancelling the visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai if he continues to make controversial accusations against Western interference in the central Asian country.
Karzai is due in Washington in May, and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said a meeting with President Barack Obama remained on the schedule “as [...]
Karzai threatens to join Taliban
April 6th, 2010 |
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has reportedly threatened to join the Taliban if he continues to come under “outside pressure” to reform, a media report said Tuesday.
Karzai made the unusual comments at a closed-door meeting Saturday with select lawmakers, just days after kicking up a diplomatic row with remarks alleging foreigners were behind the fraud in [...]
Deeper in the mire
January 5th, 2010 |
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A worsening political crisis in Afghanistan
THIS was supposed to be the month when Afghanistan would put an end to nearly eight months of political crisis and get on with beating back the Taliban insurgency. Western diplomats had talked optimistically of Hamid Karzai moving past his fraudulent re-election as president, with the appointment of a government of talented technocrats. And plans for another round of elections (this time for the parliament) would be quietly dropped, letting Stanley McChrystal, the American commander of NATO forces, concentrate on using the extra troops granted to him by Barack Obama to “secure the population” rather than just polling stations.
But the local political class is proving reluctant to follow the West’s script. Two specific problems threaten to cause months of more political uncertainty and perhaps another constitutional crisis. …
Karzai govt will collapse within weeks of international forces pullout, warns Miliband
November 21st, 2009 |
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British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has warned British opponents of the Afghan war that the Hamid Karzai-led government could collapse within weeks if NATO pulled out its troops now.
“If international forces leave, you can choose a time – five minutes, 24 hours or seven days – but the insurgent forces will overrun those forces that [...]
Karzai says Afghan forces will take over security within five years
November 20th, 2009 |
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has set a five-year time frame for Afghan forces to take over from international troops.
“We are determined that by the next five years, the Afghan forces are capable of taking the lead in ensuring security and stability across the country,” The Telegraph quoted Karzai, as saying.
Karzai’s statement came a day after [...]
Karzai promises to end cronyism and graft era in Afghanistan
November 19th, 2009 |
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Promising Thursday to prosecute corrupt government officials and end a culture of impunity during his second term, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said that his administration would move beyond the cronyism and graft of the past five years.
Speaking after his inauguration here, Karzai, who has come under intense international pressure to clean up his government, said [...]
Karzai should seize the moment, end government corruption: Clinton
November 19th, 2009 |
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Visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to seize the moment of his second term as head of state to end government corruption.
“President Karzai should seize this moment, and so should we. That is why President Obama is engaged in a careful and thorough review of our Afghanistan policy, [...]
Taming the mafia state
November 19th, 2009 |
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Anti-graft pressure mounts in Afghanistan, as Hamid Karzai is again sworn in as president
IT WAS no secret what the world wanted to hear from Hamid Karzai when Afghanistan’s president was sworn in for a second term on Thursday November 19th: a commitment to get tough on corruption. Visiting Kabul for the inauguration, Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, said Mr Karzai had a “window of opportunity” to show tangible results. American officials say he has just six months to tackle what one calls “Afghanistan’s mafia state”.
In his inauguration speech, he said ministers in his administration must be “competent and just”. But heeding Western concerns about their behaviour does not come naturally to Mr Karzai. He has been in a combative mood since the West’s much-resented demand that he accept that his re-election was marred by massive vote-rigging. In a recent American television interview he batted back questions about corruption in his government with his oft-repeated line that foreign donors must clean their own act up and stop development funds from being wasted. Such wastage, however, is at least lawful, unlike the Afghan government’s practice of selling jobs to officials who then repay themselves through extortion. Nor is it akin to the impunity the well-connected enjoy. …
US envoy to Afghanistan urges Obama not to send more troops
November 13th, 2009 |
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US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W Eikenberry has told President Barack Obama through a leaked cabled message that it would be a mistake to send additional military reinforcements to war-torn Afghanistan, and has reportedly advised the White House to hold off on such move till the Hamid Karzai government demonstrates that it will act against [...]
Musharraf insists all his actions were legal and constitutional
November 9th, 2009 |
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Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has insisted that all of his actions as president were constitutional and validated by the Supreme Court, and had been taken to establish democracy in the country.
In an interview with a TV channel in Washington, Musharraf said Taliban leader Mullah Omar had never been to Pakistan, adding that Afghanistan [...]
Karzai will lose international support if he fails to get rid of corruption: Brown
November 7th, 2009 |
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has warned Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai that he would lose international support if he fails to get rid of corruption prevalent in his government.
The Guardian quoted Brown as saying that he was “not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’’s way for a government that [...]
US terms Karzai’s induction as legitimate
November 5th, 2009 |
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Amid criticism that the decision of Afghan Election Commission on Presidential polls was not legal, the US on Thursday said it considers Hamid Karzai as the “legitimately elected” president of the war-torn country.
“We believe that there was an election that was carried out according to Afghan law. We recognise Hamid Karzai as the legitimately [...]
Abdullah says Karzai re-election ‘illegal’
November 4th, 2009 |
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Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who quit Afghanistan’s troubled presidential election race this week, charged Wednesday that his rival Hamid Karzai’s re-election had “no legal basis”. Abdullah, who pulled out of a run-off poll scheduled after more than a million votes cast in the
Obama congratulates Karzai, asks him to improve governance
November 3rd, 2009 |
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US President Barack Obama congratulated Hamid Karzai on his re-election as President of Afghanistan and asked him to improve governance, besides eradicating corruption.
Congratulating Karzai over telephone on his re-election on Tuesday, Obama told the Afghan leader that his administration needs to be more serious in its efforts to eradicate corruption.
Later, Obama said that Karzai assured [...]