Expressing "extreme anger" toward the U.S. government, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview with the Washington Post that the war in Afghanistan was not fought with his country's interests in mind.
"Afghans died in a war that's not ours," Karzai said in the interview just a month before an election to pick his successor.
He was quoted as saying he was certain the 12-year-old war, America's longest and launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001, was "for the U.S. security and for the Western interest."
Karzai's refusal to sign a security deal with Washington that would permit foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan.
"It's good for them to sign it with my successor," Karzai told the Post. He has insisted the United States must jump-start peace talks with Taliban insurgents and end raids and strikes on Afghan homes before he signs the deal.
More than 3,400 coalition forces have been killed in the fight against the Taliban, including more than 2,300 U.S. troops.
In the interview, the Afghan leader said he was deeply troubled by the war's casualties, including those in U.S. military operations, and felt betrayed by what he described as an insufficient U.S. focus on going after Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan rather than in Afghan villages.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan dissipated his country's "common cause" with the United States, Karzai told the newspaper.
Criticizing his U.S. allies was the only way to secure a response by Washington to his concerns, he added.
The Post said Karzai told his interviewers as he escorted them out of his office night: "To the American people, give them my best wishes and my gratitude. To the U.S. government, give them my anger, my extreme anger."(NDTV)
"Afghans died in a war that's not ours," Karzai said in the interview just a month before an election to pick his successor.
He was quoted as saying he was certain the 12-year-old war, America's longest and launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001, was "for the U.S. security and for the Western interest."
Karzai's refusal to sign a security deal with Washington that would permit foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan.
"It's good for them to sign it with my successor," Karzai told the Post. He has insisted the United States must jump-start peace talks with Taliban insurgents and end raids and strikes on Afghan homes before he signs the deal.
More than 3,400 coalition forces have been killed in the fight against the Taliban, including more than 2,300 U.S. troops.
In the interview, the Afghan leader said he was deeply troubled by the war's casualties, including those in U.S. military operations, and felt betrayed by what he described as an insufficient U.S. focus on going after Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan rather than in Afghan villages.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan dissipated his country's "common cause" with the United States, Karzai told the newspaper.
Criticizing his U.S. allies was the only way to secure a response by Washington to his concerns, he added.
The Post said Karzai told his interviewers as he escorted them out of his office night: "To the American people, give them my best wishes and my gratitude. To the U.S. government, give them my anger, my extreme anger."(NDTV)
Source : Afghan Voice Agency (AVA), International Service
