KABUL: Frustrated with some of his Western allies, in particular the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun to reach out to Afghanistan’s giant northern neighbour Russia.

US President Barack Obama has pledged to make Afghanistan his top foreign policy priority and will be unlikely to give Karzai an easy ride, having accused him in the past of failing to get “out of the bunker” and rule effectively.

Karzai, once the darling of the West, is no longer assured of the unwavering support he enjoyed from former President George W. Bush, and European leaders have joined the chorus continually calling for good governance – more implied criticism of Karzai.

“When Karzai sees his former allies are not in power and the rest criticise him, instead of helping him, then he looks for new allies,” said Shukriya Barakzai, a prominent parliamentarian.

The new allies, she said, were led by Russia, and included neighbours Iran and China who have economic interests in Afghanistan, but also reservations about the presence of foreign troops.

Russian diplomats have said the West was making the same mistakes the Soviet Union made during its ill-fated 10-year occupation of Afghanistan.

On the eve of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Karzai’s office released a statement saying Moscow had accepted his request for providing defence aid to Afghanistan.

Karzai’s chief spokesman played down the importance of the move, saying despite Karzai’s call, Afghanistan was committed to its ties with NATO and the United States, which have nearly 70,000 troops fighting Taliban-led insurgents in the country.

The request by Karzai, facing elections in August, was made last November and the timing of the release of the news of Moscow’s acceptance could be no more than just a coincidence.

However, the next day in parliament, just hours before Obama took office, Karzai, who has led Afghanistan with Western military and financial support since the Taliban’s 2001 overthrow, spoke apparently for the first time of his desire for closer ties with Russia.

Days later, as the US ambassador and US commander of NATO troops looked on, Karzai told an army graduation ceremony Afghanistan needed to acquire planes and tanks from anywhere it could after failing to get them from NATO and the United States.

“We told America and the world to give us planes soon and if you do not, we will get them from another place,” Karzai said. “We told them we have become impatient and we cannot live without planes.”

Recrimination

Seven years after swiftly dispatching the Taliban government, Western forces are struggling against insurgent attacks that rose by a third last year and a campaign of suicide bombing that has heightened the sense of insecurity and eroded public trust in the ability of both Karzai’s government and NATO to bring security.

Mutual recrimination, though often muted and diplomatically coded, has risen accordingly.

Karzai has repeatedly hit back at Western criticism of his government, endemic official corruption and lack of rule of law, with stinging attacks on the US and NATO record of accidentally killing hundreds of civilians in air strikes.

Last week Karzai warned he would call a national assembly of tribal chiefs and elders to discuss civilian casualties and house searches by foreign troops if NATO failed to reply positively within a month to a draft agreement with his government he sent to the alliance, state newspapers said.The draft agreement largely wants control over where and how foreign troops are deployed, an end to house raids and coordination at the “highest level” on the use of air power.

In an election year, Karzai may well want to distance himself from foreign forces and Western allies and shift the blame for the failures and missed opportunities of the last seven years.

Seeking regional allies is just part of that shift.

“The Russians may have more supporters in Afghanistan than the Americans since they know Afghanistan much better and Iran is also its major ally,” said Waheed Mozhdah, an analyst who served under the Taliban government.—Reuters