WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John Kerry reminded Afghanistan’s new leaders on Monday that their inauguration was just a beginning the toughest decisions were ahead.
Earlier Monday, Ashraf Ghani, a one-time US-based academic, was sworn in as Afghanistan’s new president and his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah as “chief executive”, a new role similar to a prime minister.
The United States wants the two leaders to sign a security pact, allowing some US troops to stay after a planned withdrawal by the end of this year. The outgoing president, Hamid Karzai, had refused to sign the agreement.
He reminded the international community not to forget, even “for a minute”, what’s been accomplished in Afghanistan.
Secretary Kerry said that he had known the new Afghan leaders for many years and believed that they had shown a remarkable “spirit of cooperation and partnership” in establishing a government of national unity.
“Afghans have taken a moment of challenge and turned it into a moment of real opportunity,” he added.
He said that during his recent visits to Kabul, he learned that the Afghan people were determined to choose unity over division and ensure that the first peaceful democratic transition in the history of their country would not be its last.
Published in Dawn, September 30th , 2014
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