WASHINGTON, June 30: Afghanistan’s newly-elected president, Hamid Karzai, has said he will resign if he fails to eradicate armed factions run by powerful regional warlords, who often defy the government.

“There cannot be separate armed groups. That’s very, very certain,” Karzai said in an interview due to appear in the Monday edition of the Newsweek magazine.

“If I realize I’m failing there I will quit,” he said, adding that “I don’t want to go into Afghan history with a bad name.”

The 44-year-old Karzai was elected leader of the interim government on June 13 by the country’s Loya Jirga, or traditional grand assembly.

He will rule the war-torn state until democratic elections, scheduled to be held in 2004.

But the power of the fledgling government is being challenged by regional warlords and their armed militias.

Karzai said the armed groups would eventually have to join the national army his government is setting up. “Or else they’re renegades and they’re rebels, and we’ll go after them,” he warned.

“I want to have a country that’s run by law not by personal militias,” he said.

He claimed that his government had managed to establish good relations with Iran and wanted to see a normalization of ties between Tehran and Washington.

“Iran and America are both friends of Afghanistan,” he said. “They both played an important role in supporting the Loya Jirga,” the Afghan president added.—AFP