Karzai Appeals to Expatriates in Berlin to Return Home

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said Friday that he hoped to stay in power beyond his initial six-month term, and he implored expatriates to return home and help rebuild Afghanistan.

The prime minister said he and his Cabinet were working to restore Afghans’ confidence in government and to establish international credibility. But the process will take time, he said, and his appointment by the upcoming tribal assembly, or loya jirga, would provide necessary stability.

“Now we are responsible, we are in charge and we have to serve the people . . . [and] we should try and be the government even after the loya jirga,” Karzai said.

Karzai was named interim leader after a U.S.-led coalition drove the Taliban rulers from power in Afghanistan. His term began in December and lasts until June, when the assembly convened by the 87-year-old exiled king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, selects a government to rule Afghanistan for 18 months, until elections.

One expatriate, 34-year-old Akbar Mazari, said Karzai was his country’s best chance.

“He has great contacts--America, Germany, France, Russia, Great Britain. It is like a company--it is important to have people with contacts,” said Mazari, who fled Kabul after the 1979 Soviet invasion and is an insurance salesman in Berlin.

Afghanistan’s minister of women’s affairs, Sima Samar, who was with Karzai on the three-day visit to Berlin, which ended Friday, said she would try to ensure that the assembly includes at least 25% women.

Echoing his message to Afghan expatriates living in Moscow, where he stopped before Germany, Karzai said he needed educated citizens to return home to help make the country self-sufficient.

Germany has one of the largest Afghan communities outside Asia and the United States.

“We have resources--fertile land and many other resources we can use to make the country wealthy,” Karzai said. “We don’t want Afghanistan to be a long-term receiver of funds only; we want to be able to help other countries too.”

He said his top priorities were establishing a national army and police force, bringing electricity and water to all citizens, building roads and establishing banks.