Statement by H.E. Hamid Karzai at the London Conference

Date: Nov 17, 2008
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28th January, 2010


Right Honorable Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Your Excellency Secretary General Ban- Ki Moon
Excellencies, Honorable Ministers, Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
السلام و علیکم و رحمت الله و برکاته

I am delighted to be addressing this important conference that once again brings together the friends and supporters of Afghanistan. My compatriots and I are deeply grateful to the international community for the attention and support our country has received during the past several years. May I take the opportunity to express my special thanks to His Excellency Prime Minister Gordon Brown for his graciousness to host this timely conference, offering a venue to renew our commitments to the cause of peace and human progress not only in Afghanistan, but also in the region. This conference offers us the opportunity to discuss the way forward toward an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned initiative that ensures peace and stability in Afghanistan and its surroundings.

Today, I will not talk about our collective achievements, which have been considerable and numerous over the past several years. I, rather, would like to take the opportunity to contemplate on a series of issues that are presently of great significance to the people of Afghanistan, as well as to the international community engaged in Afghanistan.

However, before doing so, let me remind us all that the successes of the past eight years would not have been possible without great sacrifices brought forth by the Afghan people and men and women of our partner countries. The people of Afghanistan will not forget these sacrifices. The memory of those Afghan and coalition troops who have lost their lives while fighting terrorism will always remain in our hearts. We pray for them and send our deepest condolences to their families and friends.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We all recognize the urgency of improving security in Afghanistan. What we should also recognize, however, is the fact that the goal of improving security in Afghanistan cannot be achieved in isolation and without mutual endeavor. This is so, because insecurity in Afghanistan is tied, in many ways to circumstances that exist beyond our borders. Thus, security in Afghanistan needs a broader, more comprehensive approach toward security in the region and the causes that give rise to insecurity. Developing such a broad approach to security will require wider collaboration and cooperation among the countries of the region.

While Afghanistan is moving slowly, but surely, toward the end goals of peace and stability, the success and legitimacy of our collective efforts will depend on building the confidence of the Afghan people. And to win Afghans’ confidence, we need to clearly focus on bringing security to their daily lives, by providing them with the needed protection, justice, employment and good governance. To make our joint efforts successful, we must base our plans and actions on the demands and aspirations of the Afghan people.

I believe the aspirations and demands of the people of Afghanistan, today, can be summarized in four simple words: Afghan Leadership, Afghan Ownership. Eight years into the international coalition’s fight against insurgency, our public and the publics of all countries involved, want to see Afghanistan take solid strides towards ownership of its security and development.

To achieve this noble goal, we should work and make progress along the following six-point framework:

1- Peace, Reconciliation and reintegration:

Moving towards peace, reconciliation and reintegration is what all Afghans agree on. We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers. To do this, we will establish a National Council for Peace, Reconciliation, and Reintegration, followed by a Grand Peace Jerga.

To make our Peace Program a success, we hope our brother His Majesty King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz will kindly play a prominent role to guide and assist the peace process. We ask all our neighbors, particularly Pakistan, to support our peace and reconciliation endeavors.

We are looking forward that the international community will set up an Afghan-led trust fund in support of our peace plan.

I concur with the decision made by the U.N. Sanctions Committee to remove the names of some Taliban leaders from the consolidated list. We wish to see more progress in this regard.

We will pursue our peace and reconciliation goals; but let it be known that the rights of Afghan men and women enshrined in our Constitution will never be compromised.

2- Security:

Security remains our highest priority for years to come. With the help of our partners and neighbors, we will continue to take every step needed to achieve this noble goal.

I welcome the support of the US and other partners aimed at augmenting the strength, capability, and leadership of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).

During the next 2-3 years, we intend to focus on gradually assuming the responsibility of security in greater parts of our country. This will allow our international partners to eventually move their security forces out of those parts secured by our own forces, while refocusing their efforts on economic development and rebuilding. We will spare no effort and sacrifice to lead security of our country within the next five years.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Regrettably, civilian casualties continue to be a great concern for the people of Afghanistan. We should put the protection of peoples’ lives and property at the top of our agenda. We should also do our best to minimize the need for nightly raids. Such raids may take place only under special circumstances. The Afghan people demand that such operations are conducted by Afghan forces, in consonance with Afghan laws and values. 

We must ensure the monopoly of the Afghan state over the use of force; this cannot be achieved unless we bring the non-state security contractors under control and in line with the laws of Afghanistan.

National sovereignty also requires demonstrating commitment and adherence to justice. Afghanistan wants to work with the US and NATO/ISAF to take charge of all detention centers in Afghanistan. We will create a commission that will review all detentions. This process will be facilitated and completed during the coming months.

3- Good Governance:

Good governance is at the top of our action plan. We will continue to reform our state institutions. We need to strengthen the leadership, management and oversight capabilities of our civil service and our democratic institutions. We should streamline and rationalize our rules, regulations, and procedures, so that government can work smoothly, free of corruption and arbitrary decision-making.

Achieving and sustaining stability in Afghanistan requires the consolidation and coordination of good governance across the village, district, municipality, province and the center. There is no constitutional impediment to the delegation of decision–making to lower levels of governance. However, creating parallel structures and bypassing the center will have perverse implications for good governance.

Reviving and strengthening our traditional institutions of voluntary cooperation and dispute resolution at local level can go along way in improving peoples’ lives. Strengthening our tradition of Jerga will promote healthy communities. Engaging our elders and Ulema in decision-making at all societal levels can lead to speedy and less costly resolution of disputes. Empowerment of local councils makes our development projects more demand-oriented and cost effective.

Our approach to good governance is expanding the reach of the central government to the remotest parts of the county as well as building up systems of governance right up from the village level. We expect the international community to support us in these vital endeavors.

We are looking forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in less than eight months. These elections, scheduled for September, will provide another opportunity for the people of Afghanistan to exercise their right to vote, elect their leaders, and move further down the road of democracy. We expect the IEC to closely work with the United Nations and the civil society to ensure the integrity of the elections and prevent irregularities and misconduct in the process. We have learned our lesson during the last Presidential and Provincial Councils’ election. We hope that international assistance for our parliamentary elections will be impartial, technical, and constructive.

4- Fighting Corruption

There is no doubt that good, functioning institutions are the foundations upon which peaceful, healthy societies are built. The emergence of free and independent media in Afghanistan, together with the evolution of a vast array of civil society organizations, has meant that public demands are more clearly heard and addressed. We are committed to working with these and other institutional pillars of our young democracy to strengthen public voice, transparency, and accountability in the system.

Fighting corruption will be the key focus of my second term in office. My government is committed to fighting corruption with all means possible, including punishing those who commit it and rewarding those who avoid it. Nevertheless, we must make sure that we do not stop at merely fighting symptoms of corruption; rather, we must take decisive action against its root causes. We are currently working on further strengthening the High Office of Anti-Corruption, providing it with better capacity building resources. We will rigorously implement the anti-corruption strategy and provide new powers to the High Office of Oversight.

We are determined to put an end to the culture of impunity as we move along the path of rule-of-law and democracy. We will stridently follow those who break the law and encourage and protect those who assist us in implementing the law.

5- Economic Development:

Improvement in the living conditions of the Afghan people will be a key priority of the government during the coming years. Creating a favorable environment for investment, promoting sustainable economic growth, improving the skill-base of the labor force, and creating more jobs in public and private sectors are among the major goals of our economic policy for this year and beyond. 

An integrated plan of development under the direction of ANDS as the foundation for development activities will be presented soon. For the foreseeable future, Afghanistan will continue to depend on external aid for its economic sustenance. Large, long-term investments, along with improved capacity, leadership and coordination are needed to deliver development objectives. More effective, demand-driven technical assistance will better serve our common goal for an enabled Afghanistan. Our supporters should focus their development efforts on education and health, building our irrigation systems, bringing new land under cultivation, improving agricultural productivity, and reviving and expanding our hydro-power plants and electrification as the top development priorities for the next five years.

The government is taking significant steps toward delivering structural reforms to raise more revenue, increase the efficiency of public enterprises, and create a competitive and transparent natural resources sector. 

Despite many discussions on the international aid mechanism, more than 80% of aid still bypasses the Afghan government. Large security costs of development projects and unacceptably high profit margins plague reconstruction contracts. Instead of relying on the ineffective aid bureaucracy, new, more efficient approaches are needed to support Afghan priorities and address Afghan needs through direct budget support. We call upon the donor community to take concrete steps toward implementation of the Paris Agreements. We will work hard to transform the Afghan private sector into a real engine of growth during the next five years.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A unified, predictable aid mechanism, with transparent rules for effectiveness, would have an enormous positive impact on development and reduction of poverty in Afghanistan.

6- Regional Cooperation:

Regional cooperation was and will be a major pillar of our efforts towards peace and stabilization in Afghanistan. We attach very high importance to cooperation in the region in four key areas of common interest, namely, 1) Economic cooperation; 2) cooperation in transit trade; 3) fighting terrorism, drugs and weapons’ smuggling; and 4) enhancing border security. Afghanistan has participated in many regional cooperation forums and indicated its commitment to cooperate on all of these fronts. We are eager to see more tangible results as far as progress in these areas of regional cooperation are concerned.

I believe we have strong and adequate regional platforms and forums that promote cooperation among our neighbors. The centrality of Afghanistan in this region can be used to establish direct links between the secretariats of key regional forums such as SAARC, GCC, SCO, CAREC and ECO. This will provide a new window of opportunity for wider cooperation to combat the spread of terrorism and narcotics and promote durable peace and economic cooperation in the region. It is time to establish an active secretariat for the follow-up of the Kabul Declaration on good neighborhood and to seek specific measures for its implementation. I am greatly thankful to our brother country, the Republic of Turkey, for its persistent efforts to serve as a venue for our trilateral and regional talks.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Eight years ago, Afghanistan and the international community began their journey to help Afghanistan in re-establishing itself as a peaceful and contributing member of the community of nations. Given the enormous challenges in the way of stability and peace in Afghanistan and the implications of an unstable Afghanistan for the region and the world, completing this journey successfully must remain as the highest focus of the international effort. Peace and security in the world is inextricably linked to peace and stability in Afghanistan.

To ensure momentum of our efforts, I invite our friends and partners to the up-coming Kabul Conference in spring of this year.

We, the Afghan people assure you of our commitment and hard work toward reaching our shared vision.

Thank you Honorable Prime Minister Gordon Brown for hosting this conference, and thank you Excellencies for your participation. 

Thank you