Prime Minister Hamid Karzai told US Secretary of State Colin Powell during a historic visit yesterday that Afghanistan needs a long-term commitment from the US to become a normal country after years of being run by terrorists, and Powell promised that "we will be with you."
Powell told Karzai, head of the interim Afghan administration, that the US would make a substantial financial commitment at next week's international aid donors conference in Tokyo and that US forces would pursue the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban so they do not threaten Afghanistan's stability.
"We don't want to leave any contamination behind," Powell said of continuing military efforts in Afghanistan. "That is in the interests of the Afghan people and certainly the mission we came here to perform."
Powell's visit to Afghanistan was the first by a US secretary of state since Henry Kissinger in the mid-1970s.
Before leaving in the afternoon en route to India, Powell told a news conference that Afghan funds frozen in the US during the years of Taliban rule would be freed in coming days and that Washington would make "a significant contribution" at the aid conference.
But US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that US assistance would not include troops taking part in an international peacekeeping force.
Afghanistan's coffers are emptied, drained by years of warfare and looted by the fleeing Taliban as their Islamic extremist regime crumbled in November before an onslaught of US bombs supporting the rival Northern Alliance, which forms the core of the new government.
UN officials have said that Afghanistan needs millions of dollars immediately to pay the salaries of civil servants -- currently eight months in arrears -- whose efforts will be crucial to installing a stable administration and institutions.
Yet Karzai, who thanked Powell for the US ending the occupation of Afghanistan by terrorists, emphasized that Afghanistan needs more than money.
"The Afghan people have been asking for a staying commitment, a staying partnership, from the United States to Afghanistan in order to make the region safe, in order to make Afghanistan stand back on its own feet and continue to fight against terrorism or the return of terrorism in any form to this country," Karzai said.
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