KABUL – Afghan president Hamid Karzai says his office receives cash in bags from Iran, but that is a transparent form of aid that helps cover expenses at the presidential palace and the United States makes similar payments.
The comments came after a report that Mr Karzai’s chief of staff, Omar Dawoodzai, receives covert bagfuls of money – possibly as much as $6 million in a single payment – from neighbouring Iran to secure influence and loyalty.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed Afghan official, reports that millions of dollars in cash channelled from Iran have been used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and Taliban commanders.
Mr Karzai said he got money from several “friendly countries” but named only the US and Iran, the latter contributing up to €700,000 twice a year.
He would continue to ask for Iranian money, he added. “The government of Iran assists [my] office with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros once or twice a year, which is official aid,” Mr Karzai told reporters at a joint press conference in Kabul with visiting Tajik president Imomali Rakhmon.
“This is transparent, this is something that I have discussed even with [former] president George [W] Bush. Nothing is hidden, the United States is doing the same thing . . . it does give bags of money, yes, it’s all the same.”
Mr Karzai said the money was used for palace expenses, salaries and for “people outside”, but gave no further details.
“Cash payments are done by various friendly countries to help the presidential office to help expenses in various ways to help the employees around here and people outside,” Mr Karzai said. “We will continue to ask for cash from Iran.”
The insurgency raging in Afghanistan is now the bloodiest it has been since the 2001 ousting of the Taliban, despite the presence of 150,000 foreign troops.
Afghanistan and its western allies are dangerously underestimating Iran’s destabilising influence on the country, a former governor of a border province who claims he was ousted for his criticisms of Tehran said this week.
Iran has wide and growing influence in Afghanistan, especially in the west of the country, where it has important economic ties. Millions of Afghans were refugees in Iran during three decades of war and Dari, an offshoot of Iran’s Farsi language, is one of the two state languages in Afghanistan.
Tehran joined talks with a high-level group on Afghanistan for the first time earlier this month, and US envoy Richard Holbrooke said the US recognised that Iran had a role to play in resolving the Afghan conflict.
The US however periodically has accused Iran of helping insurgents in Afghanistan. US defence secretary Robert Gates said earlier this year that Iran was playing a “double game” in Afghanistan by being friendly to the government while trying to undermine the United States.
Tehran denies supporting militant groups in Afghanistan and blames the instability on the presence of western troops.
Despite their suspicions, western countries have praised Tehran’s efforts in combating the drug trade.
Iran has a serious heroin addiction problem, while Afghanistan produces nearly all the world’s opium used to make heroin. – (Reuters)