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Afghanistan#s Ghani thanks NATO

October 3, 2014

New Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has paid tribute to foreign soldiers who died while serving with NATO in Afghanistan. Ghani's thanks came during an unannounced visit by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

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Afghanistan: David Cameron und Ashraf Ghani
Image: Reuters/O. Sobhani

Ghani, with David Cameron next to him, said NATO soldiers in Afghanistan had made the world safer. His remarks in Kabul followed his signing last Monday of a deal allowing 12,000 foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan into 2015 to train Afghan security forces.

"I want to say thank you to those families for the loss of their loved ones," Ghani said Friday. "Let me thank every soldier and civilian who was injured in Afghanistan and have left pieces of their bodies here," Ghani added. "(They) have memories, some of them haunting memories, but I hope they will also remember the good heart of the Afghans."

Hamid Karzai, who stepped down as president Monday, had outraged the US, Britain and other countries by saying that since 2001 the NATO mission had caused huge suffering to Afghans and failed to bring security. Karzai had previously refused to sign the deal allowing foreign troops to stay.

'A common goal'

Cameron, the first world leader to visit Ghani in his new role, said he looked forward to working with the president, as well as Afghanistan's unprecedented co-leader, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, the election runner-up whose protracted disputing of the results led to the creation of the position he now holds.

"We all share a common goal, which is a more secure, stable and prosperous Afghanistan," Cameron said Friday at the news conference with Ghani.

After the US, Britain contributed the most troops to the multinational coalition that invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime in the wake of al Qaeda's September 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Kabul
Following the signing of the security pact, the Taliban launched a fresh series of attacksImage: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

The Taliban quickly regrouped to wage an extended insurgent war. During the long occupation more than 450 British troops died in Afghanistan. The UK will withdraw most troops at the end of 2014 with the Afghan forces expected to take over the continued fight against the Taliban.

"Britain has paid a heavy price for helping to bring stability to this country," Cameron said. "And now, 13 long years later, Afghanistan can - and must - deliver its own security," added Cameron, who arrived a day after visiting British pilots in Cyprus taking part in airstrikes on "Islamic State" targets in Iraq.

mkg/ipj (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)