ISAF asks Kabul to provide proof for claims about US-Taliban ties

The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has called for the Afghan government to prove its recent statements that Washington has covert ties with the Taliban militants.

Aminullah Habibi, a senior ISAF adviser, said on Sunday, “We expect the Afghan government to present the world with the evidence of its claims.”

In recent weeks, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made several anti-US remarks and accused Washington of colluding with the Taliban in an attempt to justify the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan.

The Afghan president also banned the foreign forces from entering university campuses.

On March 10, Karzai said there were “ongoing daily talks between Taliban, American and foreigners in Europe and in the [Persian] Gulf states.”

The Afghan president also referred to two bomb attacks carried out by the Taliban in the capital, Kabul, and the eastern city of Khost on March 9, stating, “Those bombs… were not a show of force to America. They were in service of America. It was in the service of the 2014 slogan to warn us if they (Americans) are not here then Taliban will come.”

Meanwhile, the Afghan presidential office said in a statement on March 14 that Washington was “a friend and strategic partner of Afghanistan.” The Afghan president’s recent comments have been to “correct rather than damage this [US-Afghan] relationship,” the statement added.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of fighting terrorism.