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Brown has strong words for Karzai

06 November 2009 16:55 (UTC +04:00)

London â€“ APA. In a strongly worded attack, U.K. Prime Minster Gordon Brown called the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai a "by-word for corruption" and said he wouldn’t continue to risk British lives if it doesn’t reform.
Mr. Brown’s statement comes on the heels of the killing of five British troops this week by an Afghan policeman, an incident that has raised questions about Mr. Brown’s central strategy of training the Afghan civil and military forces to provide their own security and allow British troops to exit.
After the U.S., the U.K. is the second biggest contributor of NATO troops to the war in Afghanistan, and a major contributor of aid. But increased casualties are taking their toll on public support.
Still, Mr. Brown said his government is committed to a fight he believes is integral to protecting the U.K. from terrorist threats. "We will not be deterred, dissuaded or diverted from taking whatever measures are necessary to protect our security," Mr. Brown said.
In a speech in London, Mr. Brown said he had spoken to President Karzai three times over the phone this week and been assured that the first priority of his new government would be to take action against corruption.
"I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption," Mr. Brown said.
He said that international support for Mr. Karzai depends on his ambitions and achievements in five areas: security, governance, reconciliation, economic development and engagement with its neighbors.
On governance Mr. Brown said that "cronies and warlords should have no place in the future of Afghanistan."
This week’s British deaths have unleashed a fresh round of soul searching in Britain about the high cost of the war. This year in Afghanistan, 93 Britons have been killed and more than 100 have been seriously wounded, Britain’s highest annual casualty tally since the Falkland’s war in the 1980s.
Mr. Brown said that the deaths had not put him of his strategy of mentoring, or what he calls "Afghanisation." "It is what distinguishes a liberating army from an army of occupation," he said.
Karzai spokesman Siamak Herawi declined to comment on Mr. Brown’s remarks.
While other European leaders have expressed a need for President Karzai to tackle corruption, none of the continent’s major powers have yet taken him to task in such a public way. On Wednesday German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Mr. Karzai on winning a second term but said Afghanistan needs good governance and to fight corruption at all levels.