Afghanistan Continues to Face Challenges: Kerry

Afghanistan continues to face challenges today even as the unity government in the war-torn country has kept alive the chances of future progress, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday.

“We played a pivotal role in forging a national unity government in Afghanistan that, while still facing challenges, has kept alive the chance for future progress,” he said at his final press conference as the Secretary of State on Thursday.

Kerry said that Afghanistan’s disputed 2014 election was as serious as it could let the country to another civil war.

“We all know how difficult that could have been when an election had serious problems, and the country was poised to perhaps see the government fall apart and maybe even enter into civil war and yet we helped broker and pull together the parties into a unity government that still today is managing to move forward in Afghanistan,” Kerry added.

The United State played a key role in the formation of the National Unity Government (NUG) after a disputable election where Ashraf Ghani become the President and his rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah as the Chief Executive of the country.

The U.S. top diplomat also described Afghanistan as one of the main areas where his country focused on and now it has a well-trained armed force which has been successfully meeting the challenges posed by the Taliban and other terrorist groups.

Reported by: Nazira Azim Karimi