February 8, 2011
KABUL (AFP)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed Tuesday that theUnited States are seeking to establish permanent bases in Afghanistan to target al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the region.
"From the statements made by US officials, US senators to the media and from what they have told us, yes, they have this desire," he said.
"This is an issue that we're in talks with them about."
But Karzai insisted that Afghanistan would have the final say on whether such bases would be allowed.
"This is an issue that we're in talks with them about."
But Karzai insisted that Afghanistan would have the final say on whether such bases would be allowed.
Addressing a press conference in his fortified presidential palace, Karzai said that his government was negotiating with US officials over the legal and strategic details of the agreement.
He did not give a date for finalizing the deal, but said any long-term partnership would need to be approved by the parliament and the Loya Jirga, the traditional assembly of tribal leaders.
He also stressed that any long-term US bases would not be "used as base against other countries and that Afghanistan is not a place from where our neighbours could be threatened."
"We believe that a long-term relationship with the United States is in the interest of Afghanistan," Karzai said. He said he hoped for a relationship "that bringssecurity to Afghanistan, that brings economic prosperity to Afghanistan and an end to violence."
Just like they have done in Iraq? Balkanizing every Muslim country is what the Israelis want ~ just as they did in Europe and Iraq. The Afghan people will not accept being conquered as much as they yearn for peace. And that peace will remain elusive no matter what agreements Karzai makes with whom. The Talibs giving up? Theirs is a religious mission, fight to the death, and such fighters will go until they are martyred.
Last month, US Senator Lindsey Graham in an interview to NBC news said he wanted President Barack Obama's administration to consider such permanent bases after NATO-led troops hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces, which is planned for late 2014.
The Republican senator said that the bases "would be a signal toPakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back in Afghanistan," which "could change their behavior."
At that time, Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer said the issue had not been discussed with the United States.
The US embassy in Kabul referred media queries on the issue to the US-led NATO military in Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was not immediately available for comment.
There are around 140,000 international troops, around two-thirds of them from the United States, fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.
Afghan forces are due to take responsibility for security from 2014, allowing international troops to pull back.
Concerns are rising that the Afghanistan will not be ready to handle its own security by the handover date.
HUNDREDS OF AFGHAN INSURGENTS
TO LAY DOWN ARMS, NATO SAYS ~ SUMMARY
February 7, 2011
Kabul ~ Hundreds of Taliban fighters have agreed to lay down arms as part of a government-led reconciliation effort with rebels, a NATO official said Monday.
The mid-level leaders of the insurgents were currently negotiating with the Afghan government, said General Philip Jones, the head of NATO's oversight office that supports the Afghan government in its bid to broker peace. Jones said the talks began about four months back and that government negotiators had made some headway with the Taliban interlocutors.
In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Monday that plans by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to announce the handover of combat responsibility to Afghan troops in some parts of the country will mark a "fresh start" for the country.
Karzai has said that March 21, the Afghan new year, will mark the date on which he will name the first provinces to fall under full Afghan control, after years in which NATO-led troops have borne the brunt of the fight against Taliban-linked insurgents. But the violence continued Monday, when a NATO soldier, his interpreter and a civilian were killed in an attack in the centre of Kandahar, according to Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
However, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) said in a statement that the deceased was not one of its service members, adding that two ISAF soldiers were among five wounded in the blast. Kandahar is the spiritual home of the Taliban, who were forced out of several areas in the province in a NATO offensive last year. Most of the NATO troops stationed in the former Taliban stronghold are from theUnited States and Canada.
Separately, an ISAF soldier was killed in a roadside bomb in the south, the alliance said in a statement. In the eastern province of Khost, unknown gunmen wearing uniforms of the Afghan army, killed an acting district governor for Bak, said provincial police chief Abdul Hakim Ishaqza.
There has been a recent increase in targeted killings by Taliban insurgents of government officials, teachers, tribal leaders and social workers. ISAF said Monday that a child was accidentally killed during an anti-Taliban operation in Nad Ali district, in the volatile southern province of Helmand, a Taliban heartland.
Suspected Taliban militants torched a school in Helmand, the latest in a series of attacks against the country's education system that the insurgents deem un-Islamic, an official said Monday. No one was hurt in the attack, but half of the building was destroyed.
Karzai has been trying to broker peace with the Taliban and other militant groups that have been waging a bloody insurgency for several years. The militants have so far rejected the government overtures, conditioning their participation in peace talk on the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.
At a security conference in Munich on Sunday, Karzai said that he would reintegrate "as soon as possible" moderate members of the Taliban who accept the constitution and renounce terrorism,
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