Amb. Zahir Tanin at NYU

Last night I saw Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan's new Permanent Representative to the United Nations, speak at New York University (in conversation with scholar and journalist Alon Ben-Meir.)

Ambassador Tanin is clearly a learned man, but his comments were mostly pro-forma until the Q&A. But then things got interesting...MORE

(I don't have the transcript yet, so quotes may be imprecise; consider them paraphrases):

• He warned that all "Afghanistan's neighbors can revitalize old clients--it's not only about Pakistan" but he also said that "The road to a stable Afghanistan goes through Islamabad." He said that the media had overblown the chilly relationship between Karzai and Musharraf; it's actually quite warm he said.
• Regarding Pakistan: "The most important factor that can unite us, it's not our shared religion, geography, or culture--it's America."
• Afghanistan should focus more of its development on stable areas; by focusing so much on conflict-prone areas, not only is it inefficient but unfair--people are asking why these areas are getting all the aid.
• He seemed sympathetic to, but not supportive of, Ben-Meir's suggestion that a system of regulated opium cultivation could help the nation. It's anti-Islamic, and there's too much insecurity to implement it he argued.

During his comments he mentioned that Afghanistan's two biggest achievements were an elected president and a constitution. During the Q&A I asked him whether we should be concerned about the emergence of the United National Front, which has called for a change in the constitution to a parliamentary system.

He responded by citing Karzai's welcoming of the coalition, but warned that we should be careful of moving along the path to fragmentation of the 1990s. There's a danger in a federal system, he said; the goal at this point should be the concentration of power, which can bring security. Most interestingly, he  said the new coalition revived "concerns over the role of neighboring countries."

Comments

[Dr. Hussain Yasa]

Salaam
I need the number of the Ecellency Dr. Zahir Tanin.
Please tell him to visit the online edition of the daily Afghanistan (dari and Pashto) (www.dailyafghanistan.com ) and the daily Outlook Afghanistan (www.outlookafghanistan.net)
both the newspapers containing the headline news of Dr. Sahib

Sincerely
Dr.Yasa
mail@outlookafghanistan.com
0093799408271

[musa khan jalalzai]

Zahir Tanin's comment is tangible and scholarly.
thank you.

[Noor Ahmad Omman]

Dear Mr Ambassador
The Nimruz-Zaranj City of 60 0000 Populations which they are from all over of Country Afghanistan and from all walk of life who had been shiltered by kindness of the native nation of Baloch and respectfully are living to each other and having share of every things wity no abuse no racism no hatered and now this city is suffering of huge shorage of water just water forget about "clean or..." just water some thing with Ho2 ...
The water wells of city are so salty and canot be used even for laundry and they need your attention to take the matter to the UN Chief His honor Mr Moon to do any urgent action, And also there are good chances to offer the city some kind of public and personal machines or equipments to use it to take away the sodium colorides out and use the salt for kitchines and drink the H2O.
it is very simple commpering to the equipments Iran gets from the wold to make attomic Bomb....

Also your honor can see the pictures of zaranj city waters wich the news papers like Pajhwak and other published it is shameful and disgusting to see it even.

please do with your power to save the city of 60 000 population.your truly.

Noor Omman
former Econmist for the Prime Minister offce