WASHINGTON, March 22: Afghanistan’s outgoing foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said on Tuesday that his country did not share Washington’s concerns about Iran as a terrorist threat, saying Kabul has benefited from Tehran’s aid. In answer to a question at a press conference about alleged evidence of Iranian terrorism in Afghanistan, Mr Abdullah said: “We have established good neighbourly relations with almost all our neighbouring countries.
“Iran has been helping us in the reconstruction process. Iran has been supportive of the political process in Afghanistan,” Mr Abdullah said here after two days of talks with senior Washington officials.
“Friends of Afghanistan have always encouraged promotion of good relations in interactions between Afghanistan and its neighbours,” he said, adding that on the question of terrorism, “we don’t have evidence of ... efforts against Afghanistan” by Iran.
Mr Abdullah’s remarks followed US Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns’ statement at the same press conference, in which he alleged that Tehran has been a purveyor of the tools of terrorism to US enemies.
“Iran is helping to support Al Qaeda, or at least not cracking down on them within their own country, allowing them to roam free, and perhaps even supporting them,” Mr Burns said.
“The Iranian government of President (Mahmoud) Ahmad-inejad continues the 25-year tradition of making Iran the central banker of the terrorist groups in the Middle East, and also the leading director of terrorist incidents in the Middle East,” Mr Burns alleged.
“We in the United States have been on the receiving end of terrorist attacks sponsored by the Iranian government, going all the way back to the early 1980s in Lebanon, and that has continued over the last two decades,” Mr Burns said.
He cited, in particular, alleged Iranian efforts to supply guerilla groups in Iraq with sophisticated technology for the development of improvised explosive devices that have been used with devastating effect against US forces in Iraq.
“One of our major objections to the policies, not just of Ahmadinejad but of the predecessor governments, has been this unstinting support for terrorism. It remains one of the great American concerns about that government,” Mr Burns said.
