KABUL, Jan 17: US Secretary of State Colin Powell made a brief but historic visit to Kabul on Thursday, pledging staunch US support for Afghanistan’s interim government in its reconstruction efforts.
Powell flew into Kabul under massive security, bringing a reassuring message that was gratefully received by the new Afghan administration.
“We will be with you in this current crisis and in the future,” said Powell, the highest US official to visit Afghanistan in a quarter of a century, after meeting Hamid Karzai, head of the six-month interim Afghan authority.
“We are committed to doing everything we can to assist you in this time of transition, to a new Afghanistan where people will be able to live in peace and security, raise their children, dream of a better future,” he said.
Karzai, standing beside Powell at Kabul’s presidential palace, welcomed Powell with open arms, describing him as a “distinguished world personality, a very tough soldier and a top diplomat and an excellent human being”.
He praised Powell for taking the “time to visit Afghanistan ... to take the risks to come here. The Afghan people appreciate it”.
Powell spent only five-and-a-half hours in the country, but Karzai nonetheless said he could now answer positively when Afghans questioned whether the United States would continue helping Afghanistan.
Powell’s visit “shows to us the commitment of the United States of America... now I can tell them ‘Yes’, the United States is committed”, he said.
Karzai said he had briefed Powell about the needs of his administration which is in dire need of additional funds. He joked that a power outage that hit the palace just as their joint news conference had been arranged to demonstrate the problem.
Powell said Washington would make a “significant” contribution to Afghan reconstruction at a donors’ conference for the country next week in Tokyo that he will attend, but was unable to offer a specific amount.
Powell said the United States would shortly free up some 220 million dollars in frozen Afghan assets to help Karzai’s government, which is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy with only 10 million dollars in the bank and 250,000 civil servants who have not been paid in six months.
In Kabul, Powell was unable to announce that the money had been freed up, but he said he expected it to be in “a matter of days”.
A senior US official said later the funds were ready for imminent distribution as Karzai and his foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, had on Thursday signed documents needed to transfer the money into the Afghan government’s accounts.
QUESTIONING: US military intelligence officers are questioning a man at a base in Kandahar who voluntarily came to the Americans offering to provide key information on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, defence officials said on Thursday.
The man claimed to have been a major financial contributor to the former Taliban leadership in Afghanistan, and he is not being held as a “detainee”, the officials said.
“We don’t have much on the guy right now,” a defence official said in Washington. “He showed up at the gate and offered to talk. You know how that is in Afghanistan; things are not always as they appear to be.”—Reuters
KABUL, Jan 17: US Secretary of State Colin Powell made a brief but historic visit to Kabul on Thursday, pledging staunch US support for Afghanistan’s interim government in its reconstruction efforts.
