International
Don't ever neglect Afghanistan, Karzai tells U.S.
WASHINGTON, DEC. 11. Mr. Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim leader starting December 22, today warned the United States never to neglect Afghanistan and promised to root out terrorism in his country. ``We must finish them all, completely burn them out,'' Mr. Karzai said in an interview to the Washington Post from the former residence of ousted Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, in Kandahar where he set up his new headquarters. He also vowed to capture Mullah Omar and put him on trial.
``Omar has committed crimes, he has killed thousands of people, he has destroyed vineyards, he has butchered my country, he has brought terrorists here... I want him tried,'' Mr. Karzai said.
He also pledged to take all weapons out of circulation in Afghanistan, which has been ravaged by some 20 years of warfare, both internal and against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. ``The gun has to stop ruling the country,'' he stressed. Mr. Karzai said he wrote to U.S. President, Mr. George W Bush, thanking him ``for his help and for liberating us from a horrible force ... And then I reassured him that we would very, very earnestly work to destroy terrorism in Afghanistan.'' He said Afghanistan would avoid past mistakes and spare its people of more suffering.
``Two things are very different from the past,''Mr. Karzai said. ``One, Afghans have suffered. We saw Afghans being butchered by the Taliban and saw how the Taliban became terrorists as well. We won't repeat those mistakes.
``Second, the international community recognises that Afghanistan needs to be rebuilt. There is a stark recognition that Afghanistan must return to better times. He warned United States not to repeat the mistake it made in the 1980s after helping to defeat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. ``Things went wrong in Afghanistan because the United States walked away,'' he said. ``So don't walk away again.''
- AFP
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