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Afghanistan

India hands over crucial Zaranj-Delaram highway to Afghanistan

2009-01-22

Delaram, Jan 22: India has handed over to Afghan authorities a crucial highway built by it in the face of stiff resistance from Taliban, vowing that the collaboration between the two countries in the field of development will not stop. The 215-km long Delaram-Zaranj highway, a symbol of India's developmental work in the war-ravaged country, was handed over to Afghan authorities by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the presence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta. "Completion of the road reflects the determination of both India and Afghanistan that nothing can prevent or hinder collaboration between the two countries," Mukherjee said at a function to mark this handover. On the occasion, Karzai said the completion of the Rs 600 crore project is a message to those who want to stop co-operation between India and Afghanistan. "Our co-operation will not stop," the Afghan President said. The Taliban was opposed to this project and launched frequent attacks on the construction workers in an attempt to force the winding up of the work. A total of six Indians, including a Border Roads Organisation driver and four ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) soldiers, and 129 Afghans were killed in these attacks. "Our project personnel did face many challenges in the implementation of the project... in effect one human sacrifice was made for every kilometre and a half constructed," Mukherjee said, describing the completion of the project as "a glowing example" of the India-Afghanistan co-operation. It will further regional co-operation by encouraging new trade and transit through Iranian ports and a supplementary access of Afghanistan to the sea, he said.

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India-Pakistan

Karzai, Singh urge other countries to prevent terrorism

2009-01-13

Gee, whoever could they be talking about ... NEW DELHI - Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday called for other countries to meet their international obligations to prevent terrorism originating from their territories, without specifically mentioning Pakistan. Karzai’s visit to India was to express Afghanistan’s solidarity with the Indian government and people in wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, a joint statement by the two leaders said. India has often accused Pakistan of abetting terrorists who launch attacks in Indian territory, especially in disputed Kashmir. Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of harbouring Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters. ‘The leaders called for full compliance with ... international obligations of states to prevent terrorism in any manner originating from territories under their control since terrorism emanates from sanctuaries and training camps and the sustenance and support received by the terrorist groups,’ the joint statement said. The two leaders discussed a range of bilateral issues including development and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan with aid from India. Singh said India would give 250,000 metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan during its current food crisis. The Indian prime minister also accepted an invitation to visit Afghanistan. I'll bet that's got the ISI sucking the gaspipe ... Karzai, who arrived on Sunday accompanied by Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta and National Security Advisor Zalmay Rasoul, left for Kabul Monday.

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Taliban rejects reports of imminent peace deal

2008-09-30

(AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - International efforts to strike a peace deal with the Taliban collapsed late Sunday when militant leaders rejected any attempt to engage in negotiations. The Taliban emphatically denied a British media report that suggested that its leadership was engaged in talks with the Afghan government to end the war and reiterated their determination to rid the country of all foreign troops. The British weekly, The Observer, said on Sunday that the Taliban had been engaged in secret talks about ending the conflict in Afghanistan in a 'peace process' sponsored by Saudi Arabia and backed by Britain. Nice going boys, it was supposed to be a secret ... "The mainstream media is reporting a 'peace process' between the Taliban and the Kabul puppet administration which is being sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain," the statement said. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta had previously announced at a media conference that there would be "good news" in a few days regarding a deal with Taliban leaders. But the statement issued by the Taliban from Kabul in Pashto and later in English on Monday categorically denied any such negotiations. It rejected claims that that there were "unprecedented talks" involving a senior ex-Taliban member who is travelling between Kabul and the alleged bases of the Taliban senior leadership in Pakistan. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan rejects all these false claims by the enemy who is using this propaganda campaign," the statement said. "The aim of this propaganda is to create an atmosphere of disunity among Muslims in order to weaken the Ummah (Muslim faithful). Our struggle will be continued until the departure of all foreign troops." The statement was signed by the pseudonym of 'Dr Talib' on behalf of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It also said that former members of the Taliban who had surrendered or were under surveillance were not associated with their organisation.

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan denies holding talks with Taliban

2008-09-29

Afghanistan's foreign minister on Sunday denied reports that the government was in contact with Taliban insurgents to negotiate an end to the conflict. Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday said the "unprecedented talks" involved a senior ex-Taliban member travelling between Kabul, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and European capitals. "I cannot say anything about the matter that talks between the Taliban and Afghans ... are going on," Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told a news conference when asked to comment about the report. "I deny there is any contact between the Foreign Ministry and the Taliban about the negotiations," he said when asked for elaboration. "I do not confirm such contacts," he said when pressed if any other government organ was involved in any such process. After the news conference he said with a smile he would have news on this in coming days. The report came as the Taliban have extended the scope and size of their insurgency this year, the bloodiest period since US-led and Afghan forces invaded in 2001. Western leaders and diplomats stress the war in Afghanistan, where more than 71,000 foreign troops are based, cannot be won militarily. But talks with the Taliban had proven problematic.

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Afghanistan

Karzai directly blames Pakistan for attacks

2008-07-14

Watch out for exploding sunroof handles, Hamid... Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of being behind a recent wave of deadly attacks in Afghanistan, including the Indian embassy bombing. In a strongly worded statement, Karzai said it was "clear" who was behind the violence, including a suicide bombing in Uruzgan Sunday that killed 24 Afghans and the embassy blast that killed more than more than 40 people. "The murder, killing, destruction, dishonouring and insecurity in Afghanistan is carried out by the intelligence administration of Pakistan, its military intelligence institutions," he said in a statement. "We know who kills innocent people," the statement said. "We have told the government of Pakistan and the world and from now on it will be pronounced by every member of the Afghan nation." Afghanistan regularly accuses Pakistan, a long-time rival of India, of supporting militants who have been waging a deadly insurgency in the nation since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime in a US-led invasion. US officials also say that Pakistan has allowed Taliban and Al-Qaeda to regroup in its tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan rejects charges of supporting extremists and says it is doing what it can to stop them. Like how? Making deals with them? The July 7 attack on the Indian embassy was the deadliest in the capital and Afghan officials were quick to point a finger at Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). India's national security adviser has also blamed the attack, which killed two senior Indian diplomats, on the ISI. "We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this. The ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed," M.K Narayanan told the NDTV news network on Saturday. Pakistan has insisted it was not involved. In his statement, Karzai also referred to the Taliban's killing on Sunday in Ghazni province of two women whom the militants alleged were prostitutes and worked for the police. "These ladies were martyred by terrorists who have been trained in terrorist nests and intelligence offices outside Afghanistan where respect of (women's) honour doesn't mean anything," his statement said. And he said the beheading of two Afghan refugees by Pakistan-based Taliban militants in June would be "avenged." The men were accused of being spies. Kabul and Islamabad are key players in the United States' "war on terror" launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda, which the Taliban regime allowed to operate in Afghanistan. But Afghan and Western officials allege that Islamic extremists have sanctuaries in Pakistan which helped to create the Taliban as an armed militia and was one of only three countries that recognised the hardliners' government. Islamabad officially dropped its support for the Taliban only after the 9/11 attacks but Afghans allege it still wants the new government in Kabul to fail for its own strategic purposes. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told the UN Security Council last week that a key factor behind the worsening security in his country was "the de facto truce" in neighbouring Pakistan's tribal areas. He was referring to ongoing peace talks between Pakistani authorities and top Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud, blamed by the previous government and US officials for the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

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Afghanistan

Kabul wary of peace deal with militants

2008-04-25

Any peace deal between Pakistan and Taliban fighters would fail and terrorism should be tackled globally, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said on Thursday. “We believe that any efforts by any country in our region to have a separate peace deal with international terrorists ... will fail,” he told reporters. “Past experiences have proved that such efforts will only result in those who make such efforts becoming the victims,” he added. A peace deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban tribes in North Waziristan in September 2006 was criticised in Kabul; officials said it had resulted in increased attacks in Afghanistan. Spanta said countries in the region needed to work together with their international partners in a “clear, continued and coordinated fight against terrorism”, adding that “finding a peaceful way to decrease terrorism in all countries, not only in one place, is an issue that all sides should act upon”.

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Afghanistan

Iran expels 85,000 Afghans in three weeks

2007-05-14

TEHERAN - Iran has expelled 85,000 illegal Afghan refugees in the past three weeks in a repatriation plan whose speed triggered the sacking of two Afghan cabinet ministers, officials said. ‘Around 85,000 illegal Afghan citizens have been expelled from Iran’ since Teheran started the plan on April 21, Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr said, according to the IRNA agency. Afghans without proper working papers are estimated to form half of the two million Afghans, mostly Shia Hazara or Sunni Persian-speaking Tajiks, who fled conflict at home and still live in the Islamic republic. Iran wants all its Afghan refugees to return home in the coming years and Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi has said Teheran wants one million Afghans to be repatriated by next March. Times must be getting tougher in Iran. Zolghadr said the ‘foreign citizens plan’ was not targeting those Afghans who were legally registered and even those expelled had the right to return if they picked up the right papers at Iranian consulates in Afghanistan. ‘Iran is ready to furnish employment for those who have been expelled if they enter the country legally,’ he said. But Iran’s swiftness in executing the plan has sparked anger in Kabul, prompting parliament to sack both Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta and Refugees Affairs Minister Akbar Akbar. Spanta was accused of not doing enough to persuade Iran to ease its policy of forced repatriation, while Akbar allegedly failed to help accommodate thousands of refugees forced out by Iran. Somebody had to be the fall guys. Afghanistan publicly asked Iran not to expel the refugees, saying that its own capacity to house them is very limited and this would ‘create problems.’ But Iran has frequently expressed exasperation that it must shoulder the burden of housing those displaced and wants all Afghans in Iran without an Iranian passport to return home by 2010.

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Afghanistan

Afghan foreign minister sacked

2007-05-13

Afghanistan’s parliament voted to dismiss the country’s foreign minister on Saturday amid an uproar over Iran’s forced return of thousands of refugees. Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta lost a no-confidence vote by a large majority in a second round of voting, after the first round on Thursday hinged on a single spoilt ballot. Refugees Affairs Minister Akbar Akbar earlier lost his job in Thursday’s vote, according to the Associated Foreign Press. Spanta was accused of not doing enough to persuade Iran to ease its policy of forced repatriation, while Akbar allegedly failed to help accommodate thousands of refugees forced out by Iran this month. Nearly two million Afghans are still living as refugees in Iran more than half of them illegally despite millions of Afghans having returned from Iran and Pakistan after the toppling of the Taliban in late 2001. Iran says it wants the illegal Afghans out of its country by March 2008. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 52,000 were forced out between April 21 and May 8, according to government figures. According to the Afghan Constitution, Spanta has lost his job but President Hamid Karzai could decide to keep him on as acting minister until he chooses a replacement for him, officials said.

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Afghanistan

Kabul rules out French hostage deal

2007-04-16

KABUL - Kabul again ruled out any hostage swap to free two French aid workers held by the rebels, who have threatened to behead them and send their heads to Paris. On Saturday, the insurgents released a brief black-and-white video of the two French aid workers -- a woman who calls herself only Celine and a man who calls himself Eric -- pleading for help from the French government. In the tearful video, filmed on Friday, they said in English they would be beheaded and their heads sent home to France if Paris ignored the Taleban’s demands. But the Taleban have issued no public ransom demand for their release. However, Italian Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was kidnapped in Helmand last month, was freed after two weeks when Kabul released five senior Taleban prisoners. His Afghan driver and translator were beheaded. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta on Sunday repeated President Hamid Karzai’s pledge there would be no more hostage swaps. ‘We will avoid the exchange of hostages with the criminals,’ Spanta told reporters. ‘If we do it once or twice, it will become a procedure. It won’t have an end.’ There's someone with some sense. The Mastrogiacomo deal drew bitter criticism in Italy and Afghanistan for encouraging the Taleban to take more hostages. They already hold five Afghan health workers and have threatened to kill one unless the government starts peace talks. Karzai’s palace said on Saturday French President Jacques Chirac had phoned the Afghan leader to ask for help. ‘President Hamid Karzai assured President Chirac that the relevant Afghan institutions will spare no effort in securing the release of the kidnapped French nationals and their Afghan colleagues,’ the palace said in a statement.

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Afghanistan

Spanta says Pakistan 'uses terror as foreign policy'

2007-03-04

The Afghan foreign minister told members of parliament on Saturday that Pakistan “uses terror as its foreign policy”, and it once occupied almost 90 percent of Afghanistan, a reference to when the Taliban ruled the country. Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said the international community was rewarding Pakistan with aid packages even though it “supports Taliban fighters”. “Pakistan shouldn’t use terror as its foreign policy,” he said. “I wish that the international community wouldn’t give rewards to countries that are supporting the Taliban.” Afghan officials frequently accuse Pakistani leaders of harbouring Taliban fighters and commanders, although the Pakistani government piously insists it does all it can to fight terrorism. From what we've seen here, both statements are probably true. Pakland's denials that it harbors the Taliban becomes more laughable with each repetition, since repetitions usually come on the heels of a Pak operation in Afghanistan getting busted. And Perv probably is doing all he can to "fight terrorism," given the constraints of Pak foreign policy - which does rely on terrorism as a basic instrument, thereby requiring a convoluted definition of "terrorism" - and Pak internal politix, which after 60 years of Islamic independence have become so tainted with Islamism as to leave the state barely functional. Spanta gave the frank assessment of Pakistan to members of the upper house’s foreign relations committee. At one point, Spanta said the conversation was “between you and me”, an indication he may have thought he was speaking off the record. However, several Afghan media members were recording the conversation and later broadcast the comments. Dawood Muradian, a senior adviser to Spanta, said there was “nothing new” in Spanta’s comments. He said there were some “circles in Pakistan” that did not want to see Afghanistan and Pakistan coexist peacefully. “But we want a good relationship with all our neighbours, including Pakistan,” said Muradian. “We want Pakistan to recognise Afghanistan as an independent country.” Spanta, who is an ethnic Tajik, said Pakistan once occupied “90 percent of our soil, but they were not satisfied”, a reference to when Taliban fighters, who are mostly ethnic Pashtun, ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996-2001.

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Afghanistan

Taliban not 'ethnic' issue: Afghan FM

2006-10-16

KABUL: Afghanistan on Sunday accused Pakistan of trying to play down the threat of "international terrorism" by labelling the Taliban uprising in Afghanistan an ethnic issue. Addressing a news conference in Kabul, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta responded to the claim made by President Musharraf that Taliban insurgents had roots among Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes. In a clear reference to Pakistan, the Afghan foreign minister went on to say: "The terrorism which is religious extremism is a global network operating against Afghanistan and other democratic states from Russia to India to America with the support of a country... Terrorism is not an ethnic issue.”

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Afghanistan

Afghan foreign minister sez Taliban, al-Qaeda attacks being planned in Pakistan

2006-05-22

Leaders of the Taliban movement and Al Qaeda are living in Pakistan where they organise attacks in Afghanistan, the Afghan foreign minister said on Sunday, in the latest in a war of words between the neighbours. "We know that the ideological leadership and also political leadership or military leadership of the Taliban and also other international terrorist groups ... are living in Pakistan," Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told a news conference. Asked if militant attacks against Afghan and US-led troops were orchestrated in Pakistan, he said: "Exactly, that is the case." Spanta, who became foreign minister last month, said he would travel to Pakistan in coming weeks and ask Islamabad to "decisively" campaign against the militants. He said Afghanistan wanted friendship with Pakistan and that was only possible with mutual respect and security. Spanta said that both Afghanistan and India were victims of terrorism and organised crime and needed close relations. But he said Pakistan need not be alarmed by the close ties between New Delhi and Kabul. "Common risks, whether terrorism or organised crime, threaten both countries and for this reason the two countries should cooperate, strategically and defensively," he said.

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