Obama, Karzai Vow Undeterred Effort in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2011 — Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and Afghan Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai today vowed that despite the assas­si­na­tion of the chair­man of the Afghan High Peace Coun­cil, progress toward a peace­ful and pros­per­ous Afghanistan will con­tin­ue unde­terred.

The two pres­i­dents spoke briefly with reporters before a meet­ing in New York. 

Two sui­cide bombers det­o­nat­ed them­selves at the home of for­mer Afghan Pres­i­dent Burhanud­din Rab­bani, who head­ed the coun­cil respon­si­ble for the Afghan government’s efforts to bring for­mer insur­gents back into Afghan soci­ety. Rab­bani was killed, and the council’s sec­re­tary, Moham­mad Mas­soom Stanekzai, was wound­ed. The bombers had feigned inter­est in con­duct­ing rec­on­cil­i­a­tion talks, offi­cials said. 

“He was a man who cared deeply about Afghanistan and had been a val­ued advi­sor to Pres­i­dent Karzai, and was an enor­mous con­trib­u­tor to rebuild­ing the coun­try, so it is a trag­ic loss,” Oba­ma said to Karzai. “We want to extend our heart­felt con­do­lences to you and to his fam­i­ly, and the peo­ple of Afghanistan. 

“But, Mr. Pres­i­dent, I think we both believe that despite this inci­dent, we will not be deterred from cre­at­ing a path where­by Afghans can live in free­dom and safe­ty and secu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty,” he added,“and that it is going to be impor­tant to con­tin­ue the efforts to bring all ele­ments of Afghan soci­ety togeth­er to end what has been a sense­less cycle of violence.” 

Call­ing Rabbani’s death “a ter­ri­ble loss,” Karzai hailed the slain leader as a patriot. 

“The mis­sion that he had under­tak­en was vital … for the Afghan peo­ple and for the secu­ri­ty of our coun­try and for peace in our coun­try,” he said. “We will miss him very, very much. … But as you right­ly say, this will not deter us from con­tin­u­ing on the path that we have, and we’ll def­i­nite­ly succeed.” 

NATO mil­i­tary lead­ers con­demned the assassination. 

Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, the alliance’s supreme allied com­man­der for Europe, called the attack “an attempt to silence all those work­ing on the peace ini­tia­tive for Afghanistan.” 

“This assas­si­na­tion is only anoth­er cow­ard­ly act of vio­lence,” he added,“but it will not deter the impor­tant work of reconciliation.” 

Marine Corps Gen. John R. Allen, com­man­der of the NATO-led Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force in Afghanistan, said the attack proves the Taliban’s intentions. 

“This is anoth­er out­ra­geous indi­ca­tor that, regard­less of what Tal­iban lead­er­ship out­side the coun­try say, they do not want peace, but rather war,” he said. “Their only goal with this com­plete­ly immoral act is to turn the clock back to the dark­ness syn­ony­mous with the Tal­iban movement. 

“Our con­do­lences go out to the fam­i­lies of Pro­fes­sor Rab­bani and Min­is­ter Stanekzai,” he con­tin­ued. “We will con­tin­ue to work close­ly with our Afghan part­ners in our march toward peace, and to hold those respon­si­ble for this heinous act account­able for their crimes against the peo­ple of Afghanistan.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →