Iran is seeking to keep Afghanistan weak and unstable, delivering arms
to the Taliban whilst ostensibly sup****ting Kabul's government, a
senior US state department official said in Paris Tuesday.
"They (Iran) interfere in a variety of different ways, perhaps not as
violently as they do sometimes in Iraq," Richard Boucher, assistant
secretary of state for south and central Asia, told re****ters at a
press conference.
"But what we see is Iranian interference politically, Iranian
interference in terms of the money that they channel into the
political process, Iranian interference in terms of playing off local
officials against central government, trying to undermine the state in
that way."
Boucher was speaking in Paris as part of preparations for a major
international donors' conference for Afghanistan, due to take place in
the French capital on June 12.
"In many ways they (Tehran) do sup****t the work of the government, but
they also work with the political opposition, they work with the local
opposition," Boucher added.
"They have funnelled some weapons to the Taliban, they seem kind of
working with everybody to be hedging their bets, or just looking...
like they want weakness or instability in Afghanistan more than
anything else."
Boucher told re****ters that "several ****pments" of weapons from Iran
to the Taliban had been intercepted.
"I'm not sure they (Tehran) want to see the Taliban win, but I don't
think they want the government to establish good control either. I
think they are just trying to hedge their bets and keep everything
fluid."
Boucher said that June's conference was a chance for countries to show
their will to "create an Afghan government that can deliver to the
people what the people want, which is safety, justice, economic
op****tunity, schools, health care."
France used last month's NATO summit in Bucharest to announce it would
send a battalion of around 700 troops to Afghanistan, which Boucher
said was a "significant contribution" to the military effort.
"The French are filling a very im****tant gap, they are coming down in
areas that are difficult," he said.
US-led forces removed the Taliban from power in Kabul in the aftermath
of the September 11 attacks in 2001, but both US and NATO forces are
still battling to contain an insurgency there seven years later.
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