Iran Press/ Asia: In an interview with the German magazine DER SPIEGEL, Hamid Karzai said, " I have visited a few places in the capital, but I am not allowed to leave. I wanted to attend a conference in Sochi, Russia in October. The new leadership in Kabul did not allow this. Later, I was to attend an event with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Körber Foundation in Berlin, which was not approved. Most recently, I planned to attend the condolence ceremony for the late president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa. Rejected."
Karzai said that on $7 billion of Afghanistan's frozen assets in the United States, "There are certainly many reasons to sanction this country. But why is the U.S. taking away our assets because of this? These are our foreign exchange reserves that we have been saving since 2003 as collateral for our new currency, the then freshly printed Afghani. This money belongs neither to the Taliban, nor to the old government, nor to the Americans. It is the money of the Afghan people. I think it is despicable to take money away from one victim to give it to another victim. We share the pain of those who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. But aren't Afghans the biggest victims of terrorism, more than any other nation? Mr. Biden should take that into account."
In response to the question that Pakistan has supported the Taliban for years and what it expects now that they have taken over power in Afghanistan, he said: In return, Pakistan wants control over Afghanistan, of course. But the patriotic Afghans must not allow that.
"In times of war, the Pakistani people offered us hospitality, and we are grateful for that. But we also are aware of the damage that the Pakistani military and the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) did to us," the former president underscored.
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Hamid Karzai calls for a peaceful resolution to Afghanistan crisis
