Karzai is 'corrupt' but 'our guy': Kouchner

PARIS (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner hit out at the United States and Germany for failing to coordinate on NATO policy and branded Afghan President Hamid Karzai “corrupt”, in remarks reported Thursday.
According to the New York Times, Kouchner complained that President Barack Obama’s US administration was trying to draw up a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan without consulting its European allies in NATO.
At the same briefing, according to the Financial Times, Kouchner told reporters that Europe had failed to agree its own policy on Afghanistan, partly because German soldiers “are not there to fight”.
“What is the goal? What is the road? And in the name of what?” Kouchner asked, according to the New York Times report. “Where are the Americans? It begins to be a problem ... We need to talk to each other as allies.”
Asked about NATO policy, Kouchner said: “It’s not working at all.” “Even as Europeans, we are not talking to each other,” he said, according to the Financial Times’ account of the meeting. “This is ridiculous. This is shameful because our soldiers are dying.”
President Hamid Karzai is “corrupt” but NATO has to accept that “he is our guy” in Afghanistan, Bernard Kouchner said, according to the New York Times.
The French minister said any new strategy would involve working closely with newly re-appointed Afghan leader Karzai, despite concerns about ballot rigging and corruption at the heart of his regime.
“Karzai is corrupt, OK,” he said, according to the Times’ report. “We have to legitimise him.”