Embassy Hosts Students to Discuss Afghanistan’s Strategy to Win the Peace
Political Counselor Ashraf Haidari received a diverse group of the Washington Semester students from the American University School of International Relations at the Embassy on October 11, 2006. Haidari briefed the students on the ongoing international peace-building efforts in Afghanistan, and told them that the country had come a long way in five years. He reminded the students of the centuries that it took the developed world to build their democratic states, each of which faced some of the same challenges that Afghanistan is grappling with. However, he noted that the challenges could be overcome and that Afghanistan has the strategy to win the peace.
“To build on our achievements of the past five years, we launched the London Conference last February. We signed with the international community the Afghanistan Compact and presented to them the Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy,” Haidari told students. The Compact sets out clear benchmarks and timetables to achieve Afghanistan’s specific goals in security, governance, economic and social development. “We need a minimum of $5 billion a year to implement the short- and long-term objectives of our integrated strategy. At the same time, we must build on lessons learned from five years of state-building in Afghanistan to ensure that aid is channeled though our budget and used based on the priorities of the government of Afghanistan,” Haidari added.
He urged the international community to double their peace-building efforts and visibly deliver the “peace dividend” that the Afghan people have been awaiting. “The more we make progress in strengthening Afghanistan’s democracy, the safer everyone is in the world. As 9/11 tragic events demonstrated, a secure and democratic Afghanistan serves the national security of every nation in the region and beyond,” Haidari concluded his remarks.
