Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday that top UN envoy in the country was acting beyond his authority by instructing the new government of President Hamid Karzai to exclude warlords and bring reforms.
“Kai Eide delivered comments which exceeded international norms and his authority as a representative of an impartial international organisation,” the foreign ministry said, referring to the Norwegian diplomat and the special representative of the UN secretary general.
On Thursday, Eide said that the international community did not want to see warlords playing roles in Karzai’s new government, and called on the incumbent to bring “significant reform.”
Eide said that Karzai must compose his new cabinet with competent, reform-oriented personalities that can implement a reform agenda, adding that the international community would not continue with its commitment with his government unless there were clear steps for reform.
Western leaders, including US President Barack Obama, and British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown have also called on Karzai to reform his cabinet and fight the endemic administrative corruption that had defamed his government before the international community and disillusioned the Afghan people in the past eight years.
While Obama has called for a quick action by Karzai, Brown said on Friday that Karzai would risk the withdrawal of international support if his government should fail to improve security and root out corruption.
The UN Security Council also joined the chorus on Friday by calling on Karzai government to fight corruption and the drug trade.
“I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption,” Brown said in a speech in London.
In a strong indication that the new Karzai administration would not readily bow to international community’s pressures in future, the foreign ministry statement accused some people in Western countries of meddling in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.
“Over the last few days some political and diplomatic circles and propaganda agencies of certain foreign countries have intervened in Afghanistan’s internal affairs by issuing instructions concerning the composition of Afghan government organs and political policy of Afghanistan,” the statement said.
“Such instructions have violated respect for Afghanistan’s national sovereignty,” it added.
Karzai was declared the winner of August presidential election after a planned runoff that was to have been held this weekend was scrapped by Karzai challenger Abdullah Abdullah, who said he dropped out, because the second round of the voting would also be subject to rigging.
In order to guarantee his re-election, Karzai picked Marshal Mohamed Qasim Fahim, the most powerful warlord, as his first vice president, and accepted support from General Abdul Rashid Dostum, another powerful warlord, during the election. Both Fahim and Dostum are accused of war crimes by human rights organisation.
Eide, who had criticised Karzai’s decision to include Fahim and Dostum in his campaign team, said on Thursday that Afghanistan must put an end to culture of impunity. AFP

Nato raid kills seven Afghan soldiers
Seven members of the Afghan security forces were killed in a Nato air strike in remote western Afghanistan, the defence ministry said yesterday.
The statement comes as Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was investigating an incident in Badghis province on Friday in which more than 25 international and Afghan forces were wounded.
Five of the 25 wounded were US soldiers, injured in what a Western military official, speaking anonymously, said was friendly fire.
However, ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, of the US Air Force, told AFP: “We have nothing to confirm friendly fire.”
“No ISAF members were killed,” he said, confirming that five injured ISAF soldiers were Americans.
Investigations into Friday’s incident were ongoing and no further details were available, he said.
In what appeared to be a reference to the same incident, however, the Afghan defence ministry said members of the Afghan army and police had been killed.
“Due to a Nato forces air strike on November 6 in Badghis province seven Afghan security personnel (both Afghan army and national police) were martyred and also some were wounded,” it said in a statement.
“The commando brigade informs us that foreign forces also sustained some casualties,” it said.
The incident is believed to have taken place during a clash involving ISAF and Afghan soldiers searching for two paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division who went missing on Wednesday during a routine supply mission.
Local police said a party looking for the two missing soldiers clashed with Taliban and that alliance aircraft were called in to provide support.
The defence ministry made no reference to a clash between the joint forces and Taliban militants.
Police said the casualties occurred when the air strike mistakenly targeted international troops.
The Western military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said it appeared to be a “blue-on-blue incident,” or friendly fire, with “a huge number of casualties.”
Nato began its search operation in the barren, rugged area together with Afghan forces after the two paratroopers disappeared.
Afghan police said the two had drowned while trying to retrieve cartons of food that had been dropped into a river.
More than 100,000 troops under Nato and US command are in Afghanistan fighting a Taliban insurgency now at its deadliest in the eight years since US-led troops toppled the Islamist regime.
US President Barack Obama is currently considering a request from military commanders to boost troop numbers by up to 40,000, a decision not likely to be made public for a number of weeks.
As public support for the war wanes, Western leaders have criticised the government of President Hamid Karzai — returned this week for another five years — for lack of action on corruption.
But Afghanistan’s foreign ministry hit back Saturday, saying comments by the UN special representative, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others that Karzai must pursue clean government policies were disrespectful. AFP