“Unfortunately, it [American’s deployment of its troops] is not working at all. The security situation in Afghanistan has worsened considerably, and the sufferings of people have increased considerably,” said the former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai during his exclusive interview with The Point, on CGTN.

During his unannounced visit to Afghanistan on July 9, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US President Donald Trump’s open-ended deployment of nearly 15,000 American troops helped to pacify the country almost 17 years after US troops entered Afghanistan (Oct. 7, 2001), and that the administration’s aggressive strategy is setting “the conditions to produce a safer, more secure Afghanistan.”

“But that has not been the case so far,” Hamid Karzai responded. “They’ve intervened in our elections, they have tried to impose conditions upon us, and they have done things that we are not happy with. The reason I ran into conflict with the US when running my own government was precisely this. Civilian casualties, intruding into Afghanistan homes…and unclear policies that only caused Afghanistan to suffer without end in sight.”

In 2001, the US-led forces drove the fundamentalist Afghan Taliban from power, as part of a crackdown on Islamist militants after the 9/11 attacks in the US. Seventeen years later, with the Taliban shrugging off the Afghan government's latest offers at a ceasefire and negotiations, and with Afghans still living under the threat of ISIL terrorist attacks, the war-battered nation is still searching for peace.

In 2014, Afghanistan’s current President Ashraf Ghani and the US signed a new bilateral security agreement to allow international forces to stay in the country beyond 2014. But before that, Hamid Karzai himself had refused to sign the pact for more than a year, frustrating international forces that would have had to begin withdrawing personnel without the agreement.

“I opposed it because I did not see the signing of this bilateral security agreement to bring peace to Afghanistan or to bring stability to Afghanistan. There was no sign at all; there was no indication in the US’ policy towards Afghanistan that would allow me to sign this. I was not against making a partnership with America, but the partnership with the US must also guarantee Afghanistan’s interests,” said Karzai.

“Unfortunately, after the signing by the new government, we saw that matter worsen in Afghanistan. There is a lot more insecurity in Afghanistan, a lot more Afghans died and suffered, a lot more of the country fell into insecurity…So we have not gained at all by the presence of the US’ bases in Afghanistan and signing the bilateral security agreement which is why we are asking the US to reconsider its policy towards Afghanistan and to make sure that the US presence in Afghanistan is beneficial to Afghanistan as well, and it brings peace to Afghanistan which is what we primarily want,” Karzai concluded.