WASHINGTON (PAN): There has been no indication, either in private or public, that President Hamdi Karzai is seeking to postpone the next year’s presidential elections, a top Obama Administration official told lawmakers on Wednesday.
“President Karzai has not said anything to date which would indicate any desire to postpone the election. Everything he's said privately and publicly to us and to everybody else we know of is consistent with his desire to conclude this election on time and to leave office on schedule,” said James Dobbins, the Special US Representatives for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“There's a lot of suspicion based on earlier experiences. And in any new democracy, that kind of suspicion is in any case endemic. But for the moment, we haven't seen any evidence of (that),” Dobbins said in response to a question during a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan.
The US, he said, is reasonably satisfied that the election preparations to date are much better than they were in 2009 or 2004. “They're being undertaken in accordance with legislation, rather than a presidential decree. The legislation has been fully followed with reasonable adherence to its provisions,” he said.
He said that the electoral commission seemed to have strong leadership and so far had made decisions which were broadly accepted by most of the candidates as fair who said that the international community, the United States in particular, were continuing to follow this closely and render support in a number of sectors.
Dobbins urged lawmakers not to read too much from the just concluded Iran visit by Karzai.
“Karzai has visited Iran once or twice a year since he becomes president 12 years ago. And so I don't attach a special importance to this particular visit. They haven't negotiated an agreement. They've simply announced an intention to negotiate an agreement. There is no agreement,” he said.
Congressman Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, alleged that Iran is meddling in the internal affairs of Afghanistan. “Iran will intensify its meddling during the transition, at our expense. And just yesterday, it was announced that President Karzai had agreed to a long-term friendship and cooperation pact with Iran. We need to counter this because our troops continue to be targeted,” he said.
Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger said Karzai would sign the BSA as soon as possible. “I hope President Karzai understands that he is risking Afghanistan's future by playing this very dangerous game on the bilateral security agreement. If he is truly committed to a long-term U.S.-Afghan partnership, he should cut the theatrics, including his latest move to negotiate a security pact with Iran, and he should sign the agreement,” he said.
