Kabul: Horrified over his successor Ashraf Ghani’s “unthinkable concessions” to Pakistan, former president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday warned that Afghanistan was in danger of sliding under “Pakistan’s thumb”. “We want a friendly relationship but not to be under Pakistan’s thumb,” the 57-year-old former president said.
Karzai, who was president for 10 years till Ghani took over in September last, also slammed his successor’s decision last month to send six army cadets to Pakistan for officer training. “We should not send troops for training in any neighbouring country when they are sending us suicide bombers in return,” he said in reference to the fact that the leadership of the Taliban and much of the movement’s organisational and logistical muscle is allowed to operate freely inside Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s historic struggles against British imperialism and Soviet invasion will go in vain if the country succumbs to pressure from neighbouring Pakistan, Karzai said in an interview with the British daily ‘Guardian’.
Karzai’s willingness to send Afghan officers to India while spurning Pakistan has enraged Pakistan’s generals, who believe the future leaders of the Afghan army were being indoctrinated by their “mortal enemies”.
The former Afghan president’s remarks come at a time when his successor Ghani has overturned the country’s traditionally hostile relationship with Pakistan in the hope of enlisting its help in brokering a peace deal with the Taliban.
Several “once-unthinkable concessions” made to Pakistan in recent months have horrified Karzai and many of the men who helped him rule for nearly a decade, the paper said.
Karzai’s associates have also spoken about their anger at Ghani’s Pakistan policy. Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a former foreign minister and national security adviser, also slammed Pakistan saying, the new government’s policy amounts to the humiliating “appeasement” of a hostile power who would never change its ways.
He expressed alarm over Ghani’s effort to keep India, the region’s superpower, at a distance.
Spanta and many others are amazed at what they see as Ghani’s one-sided willingness to militarily support Pakistan while getting very little in return. Afghans will never submit to subservience to any foreign power, even if resistance involves huge hardships, Karzai said.
“I am a pacifist, I abhor violence –- we would have been much better off if we had never fought against the Soviet Union,” he said referring to the epic insurgency by the Mujahideen in the 1980s.
“But if we give up control over our own foreign policy then all the wars fought by Afghanistan against the British 100 years ago, and the Soviet Union, will be in vain,” he said.
Last month, Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf had admitted that his country’s intelligence agency had links with the Taliban because India and Pakistan were engaged in a “proxy war” in Afghanistan.
It reflected the long-standing view of Pakistan’s strategic thinkers who have argued Afghanistan must not be allowed to become too friendly with “arch-enemy” India, the British daily said.
Karzai also rejected any suggestion that he is at the centre of what one of his former colleagues describes as an emerging “pocket of opposition” to Ghani. “Yes, I have differences, but I will not say anything,” Karzai said.
Karzai was also critical of many of Ghani’s key innovations. Ghani has sent troops to eastern Afghanistan to battle the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group focused on attacking Pakistan, while the Afghan Taliban continue to enjoy security on the other side of the border.
The extraordinary series of recent meetings between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s civilian and military leaderships in both Islamabad and Kabul has stung Karzai, a diplomat said.
Public’s widespread yearning for peace is balanced with disquiet over Ghani’s tilt towards Pakistan. That is likely to grow if the Taliban continue their attacks, the daily said. (PTI)
