Peace in Afghanistan is a priority and must precede the presidential elections, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday (24 April).

Karzai said: First peace. The priority for us now is peace in Afghanistan. Once we have peace and stability then we can conduct our elections more properly.

The former Afghan president also welcomed recent efforts by the US and Russia and said his wish was to see them succeed.

“I hope for improvements as we are seeing the start of some form of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on the peace process on Afghanistan, and also we are seeing the Chinese involvement in this. There will be meeting tomorrow in Moscow between the representatives of the US, Russia, and China. That’s a very good sign,” he said.

He insisted on the resolution of the Afghan conflict can be only peaceful and Afghans must play a significant role in its design.

Karzai suggested the development of a new security mechanism for cooperation between major international and regional actors so that Afghanistan would be “a point of cooperation and not of confrontation.”

Arezo news website – Humayun Salimi