Transcript of Joint Press Conference of H.E. President Karzai with NATO Secretary General Mr. Schaefer

President Karzai: [introduction]

In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful

Members of the media, ladies and gentlemen!

I am pleased to have again with me here in Kabul a very close friend of Afghanistan and a close friend of myself, Mr. Jaap De Hope Scheffer, Secretary General of the NATO.

His friendship with Afghanistan is a historical one, both during the last four to five years and even before during the time when he served as Dutch foreign minister. He has been throughout all these times helping Afghanistan.

We are grateful for all the efforts he has made to Afghanistan both as the Secretary General and before that as the foreign minister of the Netherlands.

Mr. Sheffer is handing over responsibility as Secretary General next month. He always wished good for Afghanistan and made endeavors for peace and security for our nation. We especially worked together to explore ways to avoid harms during military operations to the civilians.

His efforts for rebuilding a stronger Afghanistan are highly appreciable. Mr. Secretary General! You are most welcome! As always, we are pleased to see you coming, but sad to see you leaving.

NATO SG:

Many, many thanks Mr. President. It is great to be back, although I say this is with a slight touch of nostalgia because after many, many visits to Afghanistan over the past five and half years, it is definitely the last visit Mr. President I bring to this wonderful, beautiful nation. As NATO secretary General, I am not going to say the very last visit because that would do Afghanistan injustice, I think.

 But I must tell you that in those past five and half years, Afghanistan is in my bloodstream to a large extent because in the NATO alliance of course, Afghanistan was the first operational priority and much of my time as the Secretary General I have spent together with the 28-member states of NATO in seeing how we could be of use and how we could help and how we could create a climate of security and stability in this country. And for that, you need military; you need a foreign military presence so that construction and development can take roots.

When I mention reconstruction and development, I do that deliberately, because we have never been here, we are not here to achieve any form of military victory. President and I discussed a moment ago, I do not know about any conflict in the world which did not end finally with a political solution and I think and I hope, I can express a hope, because it is not in my hand, it is not in NATO’s hands that Afghanistan will see this day as well. And the second reason we are here of course as NATO/ISAF under United Nations mandate is because we can simply not afford extremism to take the upper hand. There are many enemies of Afghanistan who do not want this country to develop, do not want the afghan citizens to live in security and we have joined hands, the President and I to prevent that from happening.

And visiting Afghanistan I know at this very special period of time and in a very important time frame because the elections campaign has started and next to me is the President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but next to me is also a candidate for the presidency after the elections later this year. May I say it a bit colloquially and I apologize for double headed friend and that is important to notice because it is of very great importance to Afghanistan and for the international community that these elections which are going to be held later this year that they are credible, that they are transparent and that they are free and that they are fair.

That is first and foremost the responsibility of the afghan people, but the international community also takes part of that responsibility in a sense that we are going to do everything we can to make it possible that these elections are credible and they are transparent and free and fair. Afghanistan is slightly more complex than the Netherlands or Belgium to organize elections, but I think the nation has proven five years ago that it is possible, so if it was possible five years ago, it should be possible now, it is not up to me, not up to NATO, not up to the international community to interfere in anyway to what is happening in the campaign and how are the Afghan people going to vote. That is not up to us, so there you see a full stop after my sentence. But we will stay, we will stay and we will see as the President mentioned in the past, we will have to see that we do this as we are doing this at the moment with the support of the hearts and minds of the Afghan people and I say again as I have said many times before here in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan we will everything which is in our power to prevent loss of the innocent lives and loss of innocent civilian lives.

The enemies of Afghanistan deliberately kill innocent afghans that international community, NATO doesn’t do that and zero is difficult, zero is impossible, but we have to do everything we can to prevent civilian casualties and I say and repeated it during my last meeting with the President that I will be the first person to apologize when it happens but we should prevent it from happening. In other words, and then Mr. President I will stop. I has been a tremendous experience for myself and for the NATO and our allies and our partners, and NATO partners coalition is now forty-two nations strong to have the opportunity to visit this beautiful nation very regularly and again it will not be my last visit, as I said it is in my vein it is in my bloodstream.

One of those challenges, but that is a democratic and possible challenge is the elections. So in other words, Mr. President! Than you very much for your hospitality, thank you for receiving me in such a friendly atmosphere so many times. I have an extremely able and competent successor who without any doubt would come to Afghanistan very soon and will do it with much ambition as I have done it over the past five and half years. Thank you very much

Question:

I would like to just ask President Karzai if I may, normally it would have been my producers standing here to ask you the difficult questions, but they have been locked up by your security forces for the last four days, much of that time handcuffed to chairs and deprived of sleep, can I ask you why, what does that mean for the freedom of press and Secretary General! Is that sort of treatment of journalists tolerated by NATO troops?

Answer: President Karzai

I learnt of this arrest if you may call it of the Al jazeera journalists when I was on a trip to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference and I returned this morning and I spoke to the relevant authorities of the country whether they had made mistakes or guilty of whatever, they have been released I believe, [pause] yes, they have been released about an hour ago. There is a lot of press freedom in Afghanistan more than you can imagine in this part of the world, a lot, a lot more. But that was not the case of press, it was a case of making story in favor of terrorism, but not freedom of press, but even then, we thought since they belonged to a press organization, they should be released, and that is what has happened. [Responding to a breaking question], It will not go to the court unless you wanted it. [Responding to a breaking question], the afghan government is not those that you were used to be working with, in this government, it is a democratic institutionalized government, the President doesn’t decide everything, it is the institutions who also work here just like in your own countries back in Europe, so it is a lot more institutionalized than you can imagine, but then with regard to the story that Al jazeera produced in Kunduz is something that we must pay attention to, the freedom of the press is respected and allowed and guaranteed in the afghan law. But promotion of terrorism in the name of the freedom of press is a violation of the press and of the freedom of the press; even then the journalists were freed. I hope that our case was wrong and I hope that their case is right.

Question: [New York Times]

President Karzai! As you know the elections campaign as begun, and on the streets whether in Kandahar or Kabul, you are perceived as being the American candidate and I am wondering if that is true, are you the American candidate, and whether it is true or not, can you tell me how is that going to affect the campaign?

Answer: President Karzai

Well, I am glad to see this change of heart in America. [Pause], I said I am glad to see this change of heart in the west.

Question: for President Karzai [CNN]
 
I actually have two questions. My question first is about Mr. Fahim, your choice for first vice president for your campaign. Man human rights organizations have condemned this decision. Now can you explain why he was your choice, and secondly regarding these journalists that were detained, our fellow journalists from Al-Jazeera, we heard that there was a media law that was passed by the parliament twice and not signed by yourself, and actually sent back by the President’s office, I was wondering if there was any effort by your administration to actually pass a media law bill.

Answer:  President Karzai

Yes, with regard to my choice of Fahim Khan as my vice- president, Fahim Khan was my vice-president in the interim government and in the transitional government as well, and then he wasn’t with me in the next government in which I was elected to office. It was a decision I made out of considerable thought for Afghanistan and for the elections and for the unity of this country. There was a feeling in Afghanistan, as of the presence of the international community as of the trend towards the future of the country were giving us sign us trying to eliminate the Mojahedin from the scene, which was not trough that some of the activities that were done in the name of reform in Afghanistan, in the name of improving administration of Afghanistan, did see some of the Mujahedin going from the scene because they unfortunately did have the education, because of the years they spent as youngsters in the Jihad against the soviet union and the resentence against the soviet union, so in order for Afghanistan to have all the Afghans, and this is one of our greatest achievements in today’s Afghanistan… in the past seven years Afghanistan has become once again  the home for all Afghans. In the Parliament of Afghanistan you see the Mujahedin, you see the former communists, you see the clergy, you see tribal elders, you see the educated, you see the village people, and that is the Afghanistan I want to continue and preserve and take us to the next stage of stability. Now with regard to allegations of human rights organizations, there are too many allegations in Afghanistan against our personalities, against our people. Look in America during their war of liberation, during the civil war and afterwards when you go now to the United States you have a lot people, they are celebrated as heroes. Afghanistan has heroes of its own and so has Europe heroes of its own. In Afghanistan, unfortunately, there was an effort to deprive Afghanistan of personalities and of names, and that we didn’t recognize at the beginning of our government we see that now a necessity for this country to have respect for those who gave something to this country. Mistakes were made, no doubt, in this country and that is something we are very sorry about. But, I would request here, and this is very important for me as an individual Afghan that the human rights organizations also begin to pay attention to the plight of the common people of Afghanistan who are suffering every day at violence perpetrated against them by various military forces, by various accidents and incidents in Afghanistan. I have heard very little about that, so the choosing of Fahim Khan as my vice-president was a decision that I made for the good of the country, for the unity of the country and for the strength of an Afghanistan in which it has a government that is Afghan and influenced from the outside.
The media wasn’t rejected by my office or by myself, we sent the law to the parliament and the parliament amended that law. When the amendment came back to me there was a problem with this with the regard to its being constitutionally correct. There was a contradiction to the Constitution of Afghanistan with regards to certain items and the Supreme Court of Afghanistan wanted that seen, so as result of that we sent to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has amended it and the amendment went back to the Parliament. It has arrived, it came for my signature last week, but because the Minister of Culture and Information wasn’t in Kabul, he was visiting Turkey, the law is waiting. He wrote me a note saying that I should sign it only when he is here to explain things in it to me. So I’m waiting for him to come me, he has gone to in an inauguration and some ceremony in Bagh-e-Babor . Hopefully next week he will be here and I will sign it.

Question: for NATO SG. [BBC]

A few days back, Mr. Muhaqeq said you agreed to offer him five cabinet seats in return for his support of you in the elections. The agreement he said also included your promise of upgrading two districts, Behsood and Jaghori to province level, is the agreement true?
Do you think that NATO will be able to secure the volatile provinces of Afghanistan just before elections in order to give the right to all Afghans to vote in the elections?

Answer:  NATO SG

We will do our best Madam together with Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to do two things. We are bringing in extra forces into Afghanistan in a fully protection role, between 8 and 10 thousand if you want to know the numbers, who will come on a temporary basis to Afghanistan. The second thing we will do, but I say again in cooperation with Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army that is within the means and capabilities of ISAF to provide protection for the election observes which are going to come. I think we all very much agree that it is useful and necessary that there are elections observers so that they can check if they are credible and transparent and so on and so forth… and within means of capability ISAF will do whatever it can to give those election observes a protection, but I say again in cooperation with the Afghan side. I go for the assumption that the elections can be held in Afghanistan and that Afghan people will be able to cast their vote. 
Question:

Answer:

Madam! In response to your question about Mr. Muhaqeq’s assertion, I would like to repeat the answer I gave earlier to a question by the other madam. Afghanistan today has thanks God become the home for all Afghans. Afghanistan has reemerged from an abyss of the thirty years of conflicts and destruction, where and when everyone focused on their own interests to a place where everyone has returned and that Afghanistan once again became home for all.

Afghanistan’s unity, Afghanistan’s national solidarity and people’s participation in the government particularly during my administration was such a success that I would continue to build on as a precondition for peace and stability.

I have applied the same thing in my current administration, where every tribe and community is represented and this would be my way forward if the people vote for me that I hope they would.

My government would be the one for all Afghans in participatory manner where all feel heard and considered.