Karzai: NATO’s War on Terror in Afghanistan Futile

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai rejected North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s remarks, and said the alliance’s war on terror inside Afghanistan was meaningless.

On Monday, Rasmussen hit back at Karzai for his statement that the US and the alliance were colluding with the Taliban to pave the way for foreign soldiers’ continued stay in the war-weary country, Pajhwok Afghanistan News reported.

Last week, Karzai had told a gathering of tribal elders and youth in Southern Helmand province that the West was out to engineer an agreement between the Taliban insurgents and his political foes.

But Anders Fogh Rasmussen, spurning the presidential comments as ridiculous, said, “We fully respect the sovereignty of Afghanistan. But we would also expect acknowledgment from the Afghan side that we have actually invested a lot in blood and treasure in helping Afghanistan move forward.”

President Karzai’s Chief Spokesman Aimal Faizi scorned the Danish diplomat’s utterances, saying that NATO’s fight against terrorism in Afghanistan was an exercise in futility.

Afghans wanted NATO to explain the war that was apparently being waged against terrorism and why the scourge could not be eliminated despite the killing of so many innocent, Faizi added.

“Afghans ask the secretary general why the war continues in Afghan villages when it is crystal clear to NATO that terrorist hideouts are outside Afghanistan,” Faizi said in a statement.