Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, visited Kabul to emphasise US support for President Hamid Karzai whose popularity has nose-dived following riots in the Afghan capital and a bloody resurgence of the Taliban in the south.
“I don’t know anyone who is more admired and respected in the international community than President Karzai for his strength, for his wisdom and for his courage to lead this country first in the defeat of the Taliban and now in rebuilding a democratic and unified Afghanistan,” Ms Rice told reporters at a press conference in the heavily fortified presidential palace.
The visit comes as a valuable boost after the toughest weeks of Mr Karzai’s presidency in which he faced a barrage of criticism for his inability to stem the southern violence or deliver reconstruction in pace with rising expectations.
Ms Rice underlined that the US was fully behind the Afghan president and was in Afghanistan for the long haul.
“I want to say to the Afghan people that that commitment from the international community is very strong. We are not going to tire, we are not going to leave,” she said.
Her trip was also aimed at urging Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan to put aside their differences and work together to defeat the Taliban, which has gained new strength in the restive southern border provinces where violence is at its worst levels since 2001.
“We have a situation in which all of these countries, including the United States, are threatened by the same enemy and we need to stay focused on that. The same people who destroyed Afghanistan and harboured the terrorists who attacked New York are the same people who tried to kill President Musharraf,” she said.
Her visit to Kabul followed a one-day stop to Islamabad where Ms Rice praised her Pakistan as a “fierce ally” in the war on terror, but she underlined that regional cooperation was needed to keep pace with a “ruthless” enemy.
“We all need to constantly assess our tactics, our strategies, make certain that we are responding to their changes in tactics because this is a thinking enemy that changes its tactics too,” she said.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been engaged in a vicious war of words, trading blame for the spiralling violence along their common border but there are hopes that better ties can be forged.
Lieutenant General David Richards who will take command of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan next month told the Financial Times that cooperation between troops on the ground was better in recent weeks.
“The atmospherics are now turning for the better,” in cross-border relations, he said.
