*KABUL – Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has once again lashed out theUnited States, saying the U.S. Afghan strategy is not working and that thesecurity situation has been deteriorated his war-weary country, Ariana Newshas reported.*
Speaking during an interview with China’s CGTN TV channel, Karzai said thatthe Afghan people call for change in the U.S. policy and when that happenspeace would be ensured in Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately, it [the U.S. strategy] isn’t working at all. The securitysituation in Afghanistan is worsened considerably and the suffering of ourpeople has increased considerably. It is exactly because of this, “ Karzaisaid. “Change means an end to war and end to violence and reaching peacefor that the Afghan people believe there are two main responsiblecountries, one is the United States and there is Pakistan.”
Karzai also put doubts on the prospects of withdrawal of American forcesfrom Afghanistan, saying that the U.S. military won’t leave Afghanistan“completely”.
“We don’t believe the United States will leave Afghanistan. They may reducethe presence of their troops in Afghanistan. But we don’t think they willleave completely. We don’t think they will leave their base inAfghanistan,” he said.
Karzai stressed that when the U.S. decided to leave Afghanistan, it wouldbe important for regional and global powers mainly China take theinitiative of creating two environments of guarantees – “from our neighborstowards Afghanistan especially Pakistan and from Afghanistan towards ourneighbors especially Pakistan so Afghanistan can be stable and peaceful.”
The former president stressed that the U.S. presence was seen as“conducive” to the better development of peace in Afghanistan by neighbors.
“The presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan… is seen as creating or beingconducive towards cooperation in Afghanistan rather than the environment ofconfrontation that we have today,” he said.
The former Afghan leader meanwhile, said that peace cannot only come by theefforts of Afghan government because according to him the foundation ororiginal nature of conflict is foreign. He noted that the only way forwardfor achieving peace is that the Afghan government and Taliban should talkand to ensuring that he considered to the role of countries involved in theAfghan war highly important including the U.S. and Pakistan.
Karzai’s remarks come as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a surprisevisit to Kabul last week called the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and SouthAsia as effective and successful.