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Bush, Karzai review challenges

US President George W. Bush wants fresh assurances that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is dealing with his country's soaring drug trade and pervasive security struggles.

Bush was to meet with Karzai yesterday, a reliable ally, for the first time since hosting him in last month at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. The two are to review the familiar challenges that undermine Afghanistan's stability despite progress there.

Afghan opium poppy cultivation has hit a record high this year, fueled by Taliban militants and corrupt officials in Karzai's government, a UN report found last month. The country produces nearly all the world's opium, and Taliban insurgents are profiting.

Also, Afghanistan remains in a fight for basic security, a constant threat to its growth as a new democracy. Karzai is pledging to work hard on peace talks with the Taliban to draw the insurgents and their supporters "back to the fold," as he put it this week.

Bush, in New York for the annual gathering of the UN General Assembly, made only brief mention of the war in Afghanistan during his speech to world leaders on Tuesday. He said the people of Afghanistan -- and Iraq and Lebanon -- were in a deadly fight for survival.

"Every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them," Bush said.

The president is hosting a two-day climate meeting, starting today, of major industrialized nations, the UN and a few developing countries.

Bush attempted to emphasize throughout his meetings in New York that his efforts on climate change were in support of -- not in competition with -- a UN conference in December in Indonesia. That later session will be a time of negotiations on a new international climate agreement.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on world leaders to provide more help in strengthening his country's military and police forces to battle resurgent Taliban militants.

"The war against those who continue to pose a threat to the security of our people will continue unabated," he said on Tuesday in a speech at the UN General Assembly.

He requested greater international assistance to help train Afghan security forces "to take a leading role" in protecting the country.

While Karzai praised the US for helping Afghanistan build its security forces to their present capabilities, he also urged international forces to avoid the unintentional killings of civilians.

"I emphasize the need for maximum caution on the part of international forces operating in Afghanistan, as well as increased coordination with Afghan authorities, in order to avoid civilian casualties," Karzai said.

In the past two years, the number of terrorist attacks have increased in Afghanistan, as well as the degree of brutality with which they are carried out, Karzai said on Tuesday, emphasizing that the country has only been a victim and not a perpetrator of the problem.

"Terrorism was never, nor is it today, a homegrown phenomenon in Afghanistan," Karzai said.
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