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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| AFGHANISTAN: READY TO RECOGNISE ISRAEL, SAYS KARZAI |
| 2005-09-21 |
| The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has made surprise signals of openness towards Israel. The Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports that he expressed his willingness to recognise Israel at the end of a news conference following the parliamentary and provincial elections, "taking cue from the recent diplomatic developments between Pakistan and Israel." "Other Muslim states have relations with Israel," the Afghan president said. "We are open to contact and we appreciate the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip: as soon as the Palestinian State is recognised, we will have no problem in resuming relations with Israel." Pakistan has already responded to the Gaza pullout by signalling a move towards normalising relations with Israel, which it does not currently recognise. Last week Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon met and exchanged pleasantries in New York at the UN summit. Karzai's comments also follow calls from Qatar's foreign minister last week for his other fellow Arab countries to respond to the Gaza withdrawal by starting talks with Israel. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #2 as soon as the Palestinian State is recognised, we will have no problem in resuming relations with Israel." That kind of thing is diplomatic tea party chatter, not a useful commitment. Kharzai has said this before. Truth to tell, he's got too many critical items on his plate just seeing to the unification of Afghanistan to spend any time on such diplomatic adventures. Perhaps in a decade or so the Afghan government will be ready to look farther than the countries on their immediate borders. That's why Kharzai likes appearing at the U.N. so much -- he can do all his meaningless diplomatic shmoozing at once, then go home and get to work on reality. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-09-21 11:36 |
| #1 kharzzai cant let Perv get ahead of him. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2005-09-21 09:35 |