January 21, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 6, 1422

TOKYO, Jan 20: Afghanistan’s interim leader Hamid Karzai said on Sunday he expects to return to his war-battered nation with “full hands” after a two-day international aid conference here.

“I’m hoping very much that I’ll go back to my country, to my people, with full hands, both from the people of Japan and the government of Japan, and from the conference in Tokyo,” he told reporters at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

“I will be conveying to the donor nations and to the people of Japan the extent of the destruction of Afghanistan and the extent of the needs of Afghanistan and request them to see to it that these needs are taken care of and addressed,” he said upon arrival.

Karzai also praised Japan for the some $500 million it was expected to donate to his war-ravaged country over the next two-and-a-half years.

“Our expectations of Japan are very high,” he said. “It’s one of the major countries with which Afghanistan has had tremendously good relations. And we expect that Japan will be among the top helpers of Afghanistan.”

Karzai added that he expected education and women’s rights to dominate the conference.—AFP