NATO to Karzai: Don't undermine our help

By Zhang Wen

NATO warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai Tuesday against undermining Afghan public support for the efforts of NATO forces to help bring security to his insurgency-wracked country, AFP reported.

"The international community, including the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), continues to make enormous effort and sacrifices in support of the Afghan people, in order to make Afghanistan inhospitable to terrorism," AFP quoted NATO spokesman James Appathurai as saying.

"We hope and expect that that is recognized by the Afghan people, including at the highest levels," he said in a statement after Karzai raised questions about foreign meddling in last year's fraud-marred presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Karzai had told Afghan lawmakers that the United States was interfering in Afghan affairs and that the Taliban would become a legitimate resistance movement if it was not stopped.

The paper said that, in the private meeting, the Afghan president even suggested he could join the Taliban himself if parliament did not support his efforts to take control of the country's election commission.

The Afghan leader, meanwhile, told BBC television in an interview that his claims last week of meddling and intimidation by overseas embassies and organizations in the disputed vote were "all true."

"That is exactly what happened," he said, dismissing suggestions that already-strained diplomatic relations between his government and the international community would be affected.

Karzai's latest reported comments set off new tensions in the US-Afghan relationship.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the remarks "genuinely troubling," and "obviously not true."

"On behalf of the American people, we are frustrated," AFP quoted Gibbs as saying. "I think that families all over this country have watched their loved ones go off a long way to serve bravely in our armed forces, to help a country establish peace and security. I think anyone can understand that would be frustrating."

Gibbs said, however, that Karzai's defiance would not yet cause the United States to cancel his visit to the White House next month, and would not affect funding requests pending in Congress for the US Afghan war effort.

"As of now, the meeting on May 12 is still on the schedule," Gibbs told reporters.

Another senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Obama's administration was struggling to understand the motivation behind Karzai's recent comments. "Up to a point, we understand that there are things that leaders will say in their own countries for domestic consumption."

Meanwhile, the US media reported Monday that Karzai's outburst reflected his desire to take charge of negotiating a political settlement with the Taliban on his own timetable.

"Karzai may be trying to get support from Afghans through his outspoken comments, while at the same time win over hard-liners' support," said Ye Hailin, a researcher at the Institute of South Asia Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Agencies contributed to this story