Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday called on moderate Taliban members not linked to terrorist groups to join the process of national reconciliation, which he said will be crucial for Afghanistan to achieve peace and stability.
"There is no way we can succeed the way we want to in the right time without some form of reconciliation," said Karzai during a speech at the 45th Munich Security Conference, which concludes later Sunday, calling on those Taliban members who are not related to the al-Qaida terror networks to return home to live a normal life.
"We must and will vigorously pursue reconciliation as an important element of the strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan and defeating the terrorism upsurge," said Karzai, adding that the upcoming presidential elections will provide valuable opportunities to give a new impetus to the reconciliation agenda.
He also called for help from the international community to help secure peaceful elections, saying legitimacy of the presidential elections will be extremely important to the stability of the country.
Meanwhile, he urged better international coordination on aid to his country.
The international donors should adopt measures toward aid effectiveness and avoid the use of parallel structures that undermine the development of national institutions, he said.
He welcomed the decision by the U.S. government to deploy a significant number of additional troops to Afghanistan to meet the needs of the time, and maintained that any new deployments should be implemented in close coordination with Kabul.
He also expressed his hope for a positive response from Afghanistan's allies in Europe and elsewhere to the U.S. decision.
Obama has been asked to send as many as 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which would nearly double the U.S. force there now. Obama has made no secret that he wants Germany and other European countries to increase their involvement in the NATO-lead peacekeeping mission, but Germany and France have been reluctant to do so.
In his speech, Karzai reported progress in Afghanistan made during the past seven years since the Taliban regime was toppled, and singled out major problems facing the country, including the fight against terrorism, lack of police forces, corruption, and wastage of uncoordinated reconstruction aid.
Karzai urged better international coordination, especially from Afghanistan's neighboring countries, in the fight against terrorists, who had launched attacks across Afghan borders.
He added that the international community had not paid enough attention to the growth of Afghan police forces, and acknowledged corruption problems, including police corruption which remained a "huge challenge" despite progress already made in this regard.
(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2009)