Only Russia Can Help Afghanistan: Karzai

AVA-In an interview with Russian news channel, the ex-president said, “I understand perfectly well that if you [Russia] build new relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan, you can help us. Not the Britons as we kicked them out of the country several times, not the Americans as they’ve been killing us for 17 years, but Russia only. We [Afghanistan] are the last barrier from terrorists. We’ve been fighting continuously for a century and a half.”
“Moscow has always helped us, even when its forces invaded Afghanistan at the invitation of then-president Babrak Karmal. We surely fought each other at those times, but you [Russia] used to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan.”
He alleged: “Americans lie when they say that Al-Qaeda emerged as the result of your [Russia’s] invasion. They wanted to be the only superpower and they did it. The USSR collapsed and one of the reasons was the Afghan war.”
For all requests to explain its actions, the US answered with neutral phrases, like “in order to defend stability in the region,” Karzai explained, adding that he had decided to resign after he had come up with the idea that Afghanistan was just being used.
“People used to come to me continuously from four different provinces, saying that foreigners had come by unidentified choppers to kick them out of their building and kill them. The foreigners are much more dangerous, they called themselves ‘the caliphate.’ There are several thousands of them now in Afghanistan,” the ex-president said.
At the same time, Karzai noted that Afghanistan’s airspace was “fully controlled by the Americans.”
“Nothing flies without their permission. They have mercenaries in Afghanistan with their own army, aviation and security service. I tried to kick them out of the country, but I failed,” Karzai concluded.