Karzai urges Afghan war timeline

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for a timetable for ending the war against the Taleban in his country.

Mr Karzai made the call in a speech to a visiting UN Security Council team.

He said if Afghans had "no light at the end of the tunnel" they had the right to pursue other options, such as peace negotiations with the Taleban.

Mr Karzai also demanded an end to arrests of Afghans "in their homes, in the roads" by international forces, saying it was the job of Afghan police.

[snip]

Mr Karzai said there were two options.

First would be to set a timeline, saying that what had not been achieved in the past seven years would be achieved in the next "four years, five years or another seven years".

But he added: "If we cannot give a light at the end of the tunnel to the Afghan people, [do] the Afghan people have a right to ask for negotiation for peace? [Do] the Afghan people have a right to seek other avenues?"

Mr Karzai said he would continue to fight al-Qaeda and Taleban members "who are ideologically against the rest of the world".

However, he said Taleban members who were "part of the Afghan community" could be brought back to serve Afghanistan.

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Comment:

That last part is the crux of the matter. Karzai has been (rightly) calling for negotiation with the reconcilables for quite some time now — indeed, he has actually engaged in some negotiation with the mediation of King Abdullah. His borrowing of the words "timeline" and "withdrawal" from Iraq is blatant electioneering, and nothing more.

The fact that he felt it would be beneficial to say it, however, is emblematic of a real problem, which is that we are running out of time. The good will of the Afghan people cannot last forever, and it is beginning to wear thin.

Zardari takes Pakistan presidency

Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister assassinated last year, has become the president of Pakistan.

Zardari took 481 votes out of 702, needing only 352 votes to guaranteed him victory, according to provisional election results.

The PPP said Zardari's win was "a victory for democracy".

Sherry Rehman, the country's information minister, said: "It is an historic win. This man suffered jail for more than 11 years for the sake of democracy and today he is elected as the president of the country.

"It is a sign of the strengthening of democracy."


Votes from the four provincial assemblies are yet to be fully counted.

Zardari will succeed Pervez Musharraf, who resigned on August 18 under threat of impeachment.

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Comment:

Insofar as this blog is concerned, this is probably good news, as it means that operations against the Taliban will most likely continue. However, it remains to be seen what sort of a leader Zardari will be, as there are substantial allegations that he is corrupt and mentally ill.