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Fahim Wants Loya Jirga to Retain Current Afghan Cabinet, Donors Urged to Pay up
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Former
King, Zahir Shah
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KABUL,
June 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghan Defense Minister
Qasim Fahim Saturday said his powerful Shura-i-Nazar faction wants
next week's Loya Jirga assembly to accept the current cabinet as the
next government of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, development chiefs urged
donors to honor aid promises for Afghanistan, following complaints
that the war-torn country is being denied regeneration cash.
Fahim said he would prefer to keep his controversial portfolio as
Defense Minister because his faction had more soldiers to fight the
remnants of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces scattered around the country,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The minister also said that under his supervision a multi-ethnic
defense commission, mostly made up of prominent regional warlords, was
formed to speed up creating an Afghan national army.
Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai is the current leader of the interim
administration which took charge in December under a power-sharing
deal struck in Bonn, Germany.
His confirmation as leader of the new administration is expected
by the Loya Jirga when it meets in Kabul Monday.
However, at least one of the holders of the three key ministries -
Fahim, Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni and Foreign Minister Abdullah
Abdullah - is expected to lose his seat.
The trio are all members of the Shura-i-Nazar faction of the
Jamiat-i-Islami party, a controversial choice unpopular with many
Afghans.
Fahim put his support squarely behind Karzai Saturday, saying he and
the rest of the current cabinet would ensure lasting peace in the
war-torn country.
"As for the future system, we have one proposal to the Loya Jirga
that the interim administration, led by Mr. Karzai, which we propose
to our people, be elected for the two-year tenure and the people
approve it," he told a press conference.
"If the people elect Mr. Karzai with the present composition and
the current team, they will serve more the Afghan people and peace,
stability and national unity with national partnership and national
sovereignty will be further strengthened and Afghanistan will go
towards happiness," he said.
Though the Defense Minister promised to step down if the Loya Jirga
asked him to do so, he said he would prefer to retain "this
responsibility, and not gift" as long as there are threats to
security and pockets of Taliban and al-Qaeda resistance in the
country.
He said the week-long gathering of tribal delegates from across the
Afghanistan would choose the country's leader after former monarch
Mohammed Zahir Shah's opening speech.
"Candidates will be presented and approval taken in the same
day," to avoid a vacuum of power, he said.
Foreign Minister Abdullah, also from Fahim's group, Thursday backed
Karzai although he said his former party chief and ex-president
Burhanuddin Rabbani was in a campaign to contest him.
The Defense Minister claimed that the Karzai-led administration, which
also included supporters of ex-king Zahir Shah, represented a moderate
movement with a multi-ethnic composition.
The defense commission will include the powerful ex-communist general
Abdul Rashid Dostam, controlling the north, his rival Ustad Atta
Mohammad, and Ismael Khan, military strongman, governing western
provinces bordering Iran.
Other prominent members are Ustad Khalili, head of the ethnic Hazara
and Muslim Shitte Hezb-e-Wahdat party in the country's central
highlands, the ex-king's powerful son-in-law and ex-army general Abdul
Wali, Haji Abdul Qadir, who holds eastern Afghanistan and Minister of
Agriculture Sayed Hussain Anwari.
In another separately related development, the World Bank urged donor
countries to speed up cash flow into the war-torn country to meet
Afghanis basic needs.
“We
urge fellow donors to make good on pledges made in Tokyo," World
Bank country director Alastair McKechnie said, reported BBC’s online
news service Friday, June 7.
While
donors in a meeting in Tokyo in January pledged $4.5bn in aid cash
over five years, Afghanistan's interim government has so far received
only $40m-45m, with a further $50m in promises, the United Nations
said.
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| Hamid
Karzai
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McKechnie's
plea came as the World Bank, which last month opened new offices in
Kabul, approved $90m in grants for economic regeneration, water
sanitation and education projects.
"We
could make up to $100m more available in direct budget support in the
months immediately ahead," McKechnie added.
Some
observers blamed the threat of instability, ahead of the selection
next week of a transitional government, for the aid squeeze, according
to BBC.
"They
want to be sure the direction of reforms is maintained," said
Aidan Cox, adviser to the Afghan Assistance Co-ordination Agency.
Considerable
levels of aid are also channeled through agencies rather than the
government, Cox said.
"There
is a good level of commitment to UN agencies and non-governmental
organizations, but much less resources to the administration."
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