Afghanistan Times
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By Farhad Naibkhel-ASTANA, Kazakhstan: Former President Hamid Karzai on Friday termed Daesh a foreign project, asking Central Asia countries to jointly work to foil the terrorist group’s threats in the region.
“Daesh is entirely foreign and it created to cause challenges in Afghanistan and in the region and surly if they strengthen. They will cause issue in the Central Asia,” Karzai said at a press conference Friday in Astana in the sidelines of the Eurasian Media Forum.
He emphasized that the Taliban alone as Afghan force will not pose threat to Central Asia, but if there is a collaboration and cooperation with Daesh will pose a threat to Central Asia.
Responding to question, former president said: “Drug is a major issue, it is beyond Afghanistan and Central Asia. It is an issue running by international mafia.”
“The presence of NATO is temporarily and it will go one day sooner or later. Thus, Afghanistan eventually has to defend itself, and stand on its own feet,” Karzai added.
“It is upon us to work on way out through this issue, especial with work with our neighbors in this region and the Shanghai cooperation organization and the SAARC organization to find solution for our problems.”
Separately, in an address to the Nazarbayev University students and lecturers, the former president said that the war on terror was not on the right path in Afghanistan, as Afghans still give sacrifice to terrorism.
“Afghanistan progressed in education, economy and media affairs in the past 14 years, but did not reach stability,” Karzai said.
He accused the US and its allies of not going to the roots of terrorism. “They did not go the sanctuaries of it. They did not go where it was raised, financed, trained and ideologically equipped,” Karzai said. “They concentrated on the war in Afghan villages. Today after 14 years, Afghanistan is not secure. Pakistan is not secure either because of its own policies.”
He asked all the “concerned countries” to fight effectively against terrorism.
The former president said that that the foreigners always accused Afghans elections of being bad and faulty. “But we did it and did our best that we could.”
“We will continue to launch election in a democratic path, but we must do these all entirely in our own culture, religion and through our own means.”
He said that Taliban are controlled from outside, by intelligence agencies, especially from Pakistan. “But majority of Taliban are Afghans, so we have to sit down and talk to them. We have to find a peaceful way to resolve this difficulty,” Karzai said.
He reaffirmed that the Daesh was a foreign scheme in Afghanistan. “It is not ours. It is entirely a foreign project, the project of powers with purposes and objectives in our part of the world,” he addressed Kazakh university students.
“It is the responsibility of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, China, India, Russia, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and everybody to join hands and defeat it.”
