Karzai confirms receiving cash payments from Iran

Mon, 25 Oct 2010

Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted Monday that his office regularly received cash payments from Iran to pay for his "special expenses" and presidential "donations," but insisted it was though official channels.

"The Iranian government has been providing us with 5 or 6 or 7 hundreds of thousands of euros once or twice every year," Karzai told reporters in his fortified presidential palace.

"This is transparent," the president insisted. "This is nothing hidden. We are grateful for the Iranian help in this regard."

Karzai was responding to a report in The New York Times accusing Tehran of passing bags of money as part of secret and steady payments intended to promote its interest in Afghanistan.

The report, citing Afghan and Western officials in Kabul, said Karzai chief of staff Umar Daoudzai received millions of dollars in cash in Iran and Afghanistan. The president used the money to buy the loyalty of Afghan politicians and tribal elders, the article said.

"Daoudzai is receiving that help under my instruction," Karzai said.

Asked what Tehran wanted Kabul to do in return, he said: "They have asked for good relations in return and lots of other things."

"We have also asked a lot of things in return in this relationship, so it is a relationship between neighbors, and it will go on, and we will continue to ask for cash help from Iran," Karzai said.

He said the US government was aware of the Iranian aid.

"The cash payments are done by various friendly countries to help the president's office and to help dispense assistance in various ways to the employees around here, to people outside, and this is transparent, and this is something that I have discussed," he said.

US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters in Washington that the United States supports the Afghan government receiving aid from any country but questioned Iran's motives and its dedication to a stable Afghanistan.

"We have concerns about Iran and the role that it's played in affairs of many of its neighbors, including Afghanistan," he said.

As far as US cash payments, Crowley confirmed, as Karzai noted, that Washington once provided the Afghan government with aid in the form of cash because in the early period of the US intervention Kabul did not have the institutional capacity to handle electronic transfers.

Karzai suggested the Times' report was related to his government's decision to dissolve all private security companies in Afghanistan.

He accused some Western officials of attempting to put pressure on the government and to defame Daoudzai by talking to the media.

NATO officials and Western diplomats in Kabul publicly supported Karzai's move to dismantle the security firms. But they have also expressed concerns that the ban would cause the closure of many national development projects protected by private security guards.

Karzai reiterated Monday that his decision on private security contractors stands, but said his administration was willing to reconsider the continuation of some private contractors currently guarding national projects.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/350341,receiving-cash-payments-iran.html.