Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke echoed assurances by Secretaries Clinton and Gates that Afghan President Karzai is still a reliable partner to the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a period where the waters got roiled a little bit, but that period is over,\u201d he told gathered reporters in a State Department briefing on Monday.<\/p>\n
The vote of confidence from the ambassador is the latest in a string of assurances from administration officials in advance of Karzai\u2019s May 10th arrival in Washington. The White House had initiated the invitation, but threatened to cancel after the Afghan president\u2019s inflammatory comments earlier this month.<\/p>\n
But Ambassador Holbrooke says he was heartened by President Karzai\u2019s attendance at last week\u2019s Review of Concept Drill, an event hosted by Holbrooke and U.S. military commander for the Middle East General Petraeus, aimed at discussing civilian-military plans in Afghanistan. \u201cIt was a very important, symbolic statement that we have to move forward and focus on the future, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Holbrooke noted that the session that followed was the most substantive meeting he\u2019s had with the Afghan president to date. \u201cI base what I said on my personal observations and interactions with President Karzai,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a very serious, substantial meeting in which neither he nor we even mentioned these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his May 12th meeting at the White House, President Karzai is expected to attend State Department meetings with Afghan cabinet ministers and U.S. government officials. Holbrooke noted that tentative plans for the visit include an open forum to be co-chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Afghan president.<\/p>\n
Asked what caused the tension in the first place, Holbrooke only responded, \u201cI leave that for you to judge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke echoed assurances by Secretaries Clinton and Gates that Afghan President Karzai is still a reliable partner to the U.S. \u201cThere was a period where the waters got roiled a little bit, but that period is over,\u201d he told gathered reporters in a State Department briefing on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6348,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}