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American people not responsible for Quran desecration: Karzai

WASHINGTON: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Monday that the demonstrations in his country following allegations of desecration of the Quran at Guantanamo were “more against the progress in Afghanistan and the strategic partnership with the US”.

He was answering questions with President George Bush by his side when the two leaders appeared before reporters after their talks at the White House. Karzai also quoted Voice of America, Radio Liberty and BBC in support of his view that the demonstrations were politically motivated, adding, “We know who did it. We know the guys. We know the people behind those demonstrations.” He said, “Of course, we are as Muslims are unhappy with Newsweek bringing a matter so serious in the gossip column. It’s something one shouldn’t do, that responsible journalism shouldn’t do at all. But the Newsweek story is not America’s story. That’s what we understand in Afghanistan. America has over a thousand mosques. I have gone and prayed in mosques here in America. I’ve prayed in Virginia. I’ve prayed in Maryland. I’ve been to a mosque in Washington. And thousands of Afghans have been to mosques here in town, and as a matter of fact, tens of thousands of Muslims are going on a daily basis to mosques in America and praying.” He said it was understood in Afghanistan that “there is a respect, there is this freedom in America for religion, and there are Muslims, on a daily basis praying in mosques in America. And there are Qurans, Qurans all over America in homes and mosques. So it was a political act – a political act against Afghanistan’s stability, which we have condemned, which the Afghan people have condemned.”

Asked about the deaths of two Afghans in US custody – about which the New York Times has published a long, devastating report – he replied, “It does not reflect at all on the American people. On the contrary, it’s an individual act just like that bad Afghan kidnapped an Italian lady. And it’s not the work of the Afghan people – in the same way, we treat this case.”

He went on to say, “On the question of prisoner abuse, we are, of course, sad about that. But let me make sure that you all know that that does not reflect on the American people. Right now in Afghanistan there is an Italian lady that has been kidnapped by an Afghan man – while there are hundreds of Afghan women demonstrating outside in the streets of Kabul demanding the release of that woman, the Italian lady. So the prisoner abuse thing is not at all a thing that we attribute to anybody else but those individuals. The Afghan people are grateful, very, very much to the American people. They recognise that individual acts do not reflect either on governments or on societies.

These things happen everywhere. As we are sad, we recognise that the American people, kind as they are to Afghanistan, have nothing to do with that.” He also expressed happiness at the awarding of a three-month sentence to one of the US soldiers for torturing one of the two Afghan prisoners at Bagram base in Kabul who died. Most people would consider the sentence too light for the heinous crime. khalid hasan

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