THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2002
China pledges $150 million aid to Afghanistan
AFP THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2002
BEIJING: China on Thursday promised $150 million in aid to help rebuild Afghanistan, in an unusually large pledge that sealed a whistlestop visit by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai. "China has decided to provide a further $150 million worth of assistance to Afghanistan for its reconstruction," Chinese President Jiang Zemin was quoted by state radio as saying during talks with Karzai. Beijing had previously offered only one million dollars in funds and $3.5 million of material aid to its war-battered western neighbour. This sum was dwarfed by other countries' contributions to more than $4.5 billion pledged for Afghan reconstruction at an international conference in Tokyo this week. During a morning trip to a section of the Great Wall, north of Beijing, Karzai said his four-week-old regime had an extensive list of projects on which to spend the newly pledged international aid. "Security, education, health and road building -- a very, very visible activity, road building," he said as he strode along the wall wrapped against the winter cold in his trademark sheepskin cap and a purple and green robe. "On top of that should come the revitalisation of the administration, the government to become functional again," said the Afghan leader, who had flown to Beijing on Wednesday from the Tokyo conference. Afghan Reconstruction Minister Amin Farhang, who was accompanying Karzai, also promised his country would make proper use of the aid. "What is essential is that the international community did its duty, and now it is our turn to do what we have to do to use this money effectively," he said. Farhang reiterated that Karzai's authority would "pay any price" to maintain security in Afghanistan, saying that "you cannot achieve reconstruction without security". China has traditionally been one of the world's largest recipients of aid and only in the last few years has it begun to offer assistance itself, usually far smaller amounts. For his part, Karzai promised Beijing support for its crackdown on Muslim separatists in Xinjiang, the far-western Chinese region which shares a small, mountainous border with Afghanistan. China has insisted that "East Turkestan terrorists" -- named after the independent state sought by some ethnic-Uighur separatists -- have close links to Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, and should be tackled as part of the global anti-terror campaign. "President Karzai expressed that he understands fully China's concerns and said that the interim government of Afghanistan... in the future, if they find any East Turkestan terrorists, they will return them to China," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi. The growing campaign to quell separatism in Xinjiang has been criticized by human rights groups, while Washington has cautioned Beijing against using the war on terrorism to suppress "legitimate political expression". The Afghan reconstruction minister said meanwhile he had no new information on the whereabouts of prime September 11 suspect Bin Laden or the leader of the ousted Taliban regime, Mullah Mohammad Omar. "But if they are still in Afghanistan, they will be captured or they will commit suicide," he predicted. Karzai left China following his meeting with Jiang, the Xinhua news agency reported. He was due to fly to Tajikistan.
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