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Chicago (AFP) April 8, 2010 Afghan President Hamid Karzai should be judged on whether he lives up to his promises rather than his war of words with the United States, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday. "President Karzai made a quite strong commitment to improved governance which included a strengthened fight against corruption," Rasmussen said. "That's what counts. Delivery on promises. Delivery of essential basic services to the Afghan people." Asked whether Karzai has been delivering on his pledges, Rasmussen said "we are still at a very early stage. But I see improvements." The statement comes two days after NATO released a statement warning Karzai against undermining Afghan public support for the efforts of its forces to help bring security to his insurgency-wracked country. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Karzai had told Afghan lawmakers that the United States was interfering in Afghan affairs and that the Taliban would become a legitimate resistance movement if it did not stop. The paper said that in the private meeting, the Afghan president even suggested he could join the Taliban himself, if parliament did not support his efforts to take control of the country's election commission. Rasmussen dismissed the report as rumor but acknowledged that "we cannot expect him always to do or to say what we would like him to do" and that disagreements are "quite natural in free democracies." "In general we have very good cooperation with President Karzai and with his government," Rasmussen said. "Such cooperation is essential for our strategy in Afghanistan because a key element in our strategy is to combine our military efforts with improved governance and to that end we need a strong, credible and reliable partner in Afghanistan." Rasmussen acknowledged that last year's election was "problematic" but noted that Karzai was eventually reelected according to the rules of the Afghan constitution. "He's the man with whom we can and will and must cooperate," Rasmussen said. "He has made some very strong commitments to improved governance and now we must hold him accountable." Rasmussen said he believed the NATO operations in Afghanistan are "appreciated by the Afghan people as well as the political leadership in Afghanistan." "We will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job, but obviously that is not forever," he said in a speech at the University of Chicago. "Our mission in Afghanistan will end when the Afghans are capable to take responsibility for security themselves and run the country themselves." He added that he believes NATO will be able to begin the "gradual process" of handing over responsibility province by province "can and will start this year."
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