Newsletter No. 176
January 31, 2006

 

The following newsletter has been contributed by J. Sean Curtin (Shingetsu Member No. 30). Curtin is a London-based journalist and scholar. The interview took place at Chatham House.

---

INTERVIEW WITH AFGHAN FOREIGN MINISTER ABDULLAH ABDULLAH

The London Conference on Afghanistan is being held from the 31 January to 1 February with both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah attending. Senior Vice-Minster for Foreign Affairs Katsutoshi Kaneda is also participating.

So far, Japan has been one of the most generous donors of aid to Kabul. During the last visit of Foreign Minister Abdullah to Tokyo in May 2005, Japan pledged new and additional funds to a host of projects. For example, it extended its assistance grant up to three billion yen for the "Project for Construction of the Terminal of Kabul International Airport." This was a little over a month before Afghanistan became the only Asian country to co-sponsor Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Some sections of the Japanese press speculated there was a connection, but in an interview on 30 January Dr. Abdullah explained Kabul's position.

Sean Curtin: Last July Afghanistan was one of a small numbers of countries which back Japan's and the other G-4 countries' bid for a permanent United Nations Security Council seat. In fact, Afghanistan was the only country in the whole of Asia that was prepared to be a co-sponsor of Japan's Security Council bid. Why did Kabul take what was, in regional terms, a unique stance? Did your position have anything to do, as some critics have suggested, with the generous amounts of aid Japan has offered your country, especially after your visit to Tokyo in May 2005?

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah: Well, in fact we determined this policy before Japan decided to give us such generous aid allocations. Of course, we based the final decision on a request from Japan, Germany and other friends of Afghanistan. Japan has been one of the major donors to Afghanistan and the Tokyo Conference [January 2002] was the main international donors' conference after the Bonn Agreement. Well, when Tokyo asked us to support their efforts for a UN seat, not only did we support it, we decided to co-sponsor it. This is the basis of your question?

Curtin: Yes, I am interested to know what your motives were for taking an approach that no other country in your region decided to adopt.

Dr. Abdullah: Well, as I said, we took the stance that we wanted to co-sponsor the resolution put forward by the G-4. It was the small thing that we were capable of doing and we did not hesitate in carrying out the policy