Obama administration dismayed by Afghan president’s criticisms of international community
By APFriday, April 2, 2010
US officials troubled by Karzai’s remarks
WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials expressed dismay Friday at Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s assertion that the international community was to blame for the controversy over last year’s disputed Afghan election.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called Karzai’s words “genuinely troubling,” and State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, met with the Afghan president Friday “to clarify what he meant by these remarks.”
Karzai accused the United Nations and international community of trying to rig the presidential election in order to either deny him a second term or tarnish his victory. Afghanistan’s election commission declared Karzai the winner of the Aug. 20 balloting, but a U.N.-supported independent complaints commission threw out nearly a third of his votes, forcing him into a runoff with challenge Abdullah Abdullah.
During his speech Thursday, Karzai acknowledged there had been “vast fraud” in the August vote, which returned him to office for a second five-year term. But he blamed the fraud on the U.N. and other foreign organizations.
“Suggestions that somehow the international community was responsible for any irregularities in the recent election is preposterous,” Crowley said.
