KABUL, June 19: Hamid Karzai won approval on Wednesday for his new-look cabinet from Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga as he kept defence minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah in their posts.

Later in the day Hamid Karzai was sworn in as president of the country’s new transitional administration in a ceremony which marked the end of the nine-day Jirga.

In his acceptance speech Karzai swore to “protect the independence and territorial integrity of Afghanistan in the name of God”.

Karzai sought to balance the ethnic mix of his government by appointing Pakhtoons Taj Mohammad Wardak as interior minister and Ashraf Ghani as finance minister in addition to Tajiks Fahim and Abdullah.

Outgoing interior minister Yunus Qanooni was handed the education brief while the governor of eastern Nangarhar province Haji Qadir and ethnic Hazara leader Karim Khalili were named deputy presidents along with Fahim.

There was no post in the cabinet for Uzbek warlord and current deputy defence minister Abdul Rashid Dostum or the self-styled “amir of Herat” Ismail Khan.

Karzai has been locked in talks over the past few days in a bid to create a government which reflects Afghanistan’s rich ethnic mix.

“We talked very much about how we could create a government that the people of Afghanistan could believe and trust and accept for themselves,” he told delegates to the Loya Jirga.

“There’s no government in any part of the world which satisfies everyone but we have tried to create a government that everyone can accept.”

The cabinet list won the seal of approval with a show of hands from the nearly 1,600 grand assembly delegates gathered in a giant marquee here since last Tuesday.

In a hard-hitting speech Karzai again stressed the need for national unity and underlined his commitment to rebuilding the roads, education and health systems.

“No one in any part of Afghanistan should eat in darkness. No son of Afghanistan should have to study by candlelight. No mother should worry about the health of their children and no one should have to go outside Afghanistan for treatment.”

Fahim had been widely expected to keep his job in the new-look government but Abdullah had appeared vulnerable, despite his strong public backing for Karzai.

Ghani, a former World Bank official who takes over as finance minister from Amin Arsala, will become one of the key figures in the regime as billions of dollars in aid flow in from foreign donors.

Wardak, who is currently the governor of southeastern Paktia province, has been working closely with Karzai in recent weeks after renegade warlord Padsha Khan tried to oust him.

The appointment of Qanooni as education minister was a surprise as he had offered his resignation last week in what he described as a bid to promote national unity. The ethnic Tajik, a protege of the late Northern Alliance military leader Ahmad Shah Masood, was tipped to use his time to prepare a possible challenge to Karzai in 2004 elections.—AFP