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Kabul turns to
Tehran
By Golnaz Esfandiari
PRAGUE - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is
making his first official visit out of the country
since taking presidential office in early
December. He is leading a high-level delegation to
Iran for two days that includes the ministers of
the interior, finance and economy, as well as the
minister for refugees.
Karzai and
President Mohammad Khatami were set to inaugurate
the Doqarun-Herat road on Thursday. The 122
kilometer road will link the Doqarun border region
in northeastern Iran with the western Afghan city
of Herat. The Iranian Embassy in Kabul said Karzai
and Khatami would also open a newly completed
power transmission line running from Torbat-e Jam
in northeastern Iran to Herat, as well as eight
border stations constructed by Iran in
Afghanistan's Herat, Nimruz and Farah provinces.
Iran is working on several other
reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Media in
December reported the opening of the first Iranian
bank (Ariyan Bank) in Kabul. Iran and Afghanistan
are also cooperating in the fight against the
trafficking of drugs from Afghanistan.
Colonel Christopher Langton, who heads the
defense analysis department at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said
Iran is an important country in the future
reconstruction and development of Afghanistan.
"They are being closely linked by efforts
against the Taliban in the past, but also because
of the influence that Iran can bring there with
the Hazara population [who, like Iranians, are
Shi'ite Muslims]. And in the development sector,
there are already projects which Iran is involved
in - for instance, the road from Bandar Abbas on
the Persian Gulf up through Afghanistan to Central
Asia is a very, very important project for the
future of Afghanistan," Langton said. "There is a
whole list of political, economic and security
issues which connect Afghanistan and Iran."
Iran and Afghanistan are also connected
historically and culturally. And Iran's strained
relations with the US have not prevented Tehran
from strengthening its economic and trade
cooperation with Kabul since the US-led fall of
the Taliban in late 2001.
Karzai's trip to
Iran comes amid growing speculation about a US
military strike on Iran. An article published
recently in The New Yorker magazine said US
Special Forces have been penetrating eastern Iran
from Afghanistan since last summer in order to
identify sites for possible strikes.
In a
recent interview with RFE/RL's Afghan Service,
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman General Mohammad
Zaher Azimi denied the report. "No forces have
entered Iran from Afghanistan," Azimi said.
"Afghanistan's policy and strategy is to have good
relations with its neighbors. We want to be sure
about their non-interference, and they also should
be sure about Afghanistan's non-interference."
A spokesman for Karzai, Rafiullah
Mujaddedi, said he was unsure whether the Afghan
and Iranian presidents would discuss reports that
the US military - which has thousands of troops in
Afghanistan - had conducted spying missions inside
Iran. Langton said a US military strike on Iran
would have a deeply negative impact on ties
between the two neighbors.
"The Iranian
regime sees [Karzai] as somebody who was brought
to power quite legitimately, but nevertheless on
the back of very, very strong support from the US,
which is still to a large extent maintaining its
position inside Afghanistan," Langton said. "So
any American military action against Iran -
however likely or unlikely - is going to affect
the way Iran and Afghanistan develop their
relationship in the immediate and near future."
Lieutenant-General Eric Olson, the
operational commander of US forces pursuing
Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan, told
the Associated Press on January 24 that he knew of
no US spying missions in Iran. He also cautioned
that any instability in the Islamic Republic could
have an adverse effect on US operations in
Afghanistan.
Karzai and Khatami are also
expected to discuss security issues and the
repatriation of Afghan refugees living in Iran.
There have been reports in recent weeks of
roundups of illegal Afghan immigrants in Iran. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has
expressed concern over the wave of arrests and
said that there are indications that some
registered refugees are being forcibly returned as
well.
Iran has been host to more than 2
million Afghan refugees during the past two
decades. But since the fall of the Taliban,
Iranian officials have called on the refugees to
return home. There are an estimated 950,000 Afghan
refugees still in Iran.
Copyright (c) 2005,
RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW,
Washington, DC 20036. |
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