U.S. Encourages NUG Leaders To Work Together

The United States has encouraged the leadership of the Afghan National Unity Government (NUG) to work together, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State said on Monday.

The U.S. State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau was responding to a question about the new rifts between Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

“We’ve seen Chief Executive Abdullah’s public remarks regarding President Ghani and the Government of National Unity,” Trudeau said,“We remain supportive of a Government of National Unity, and we encourage both President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah to work together.”

She believes that there has been concrete and significant progress in Afghanistan since the Government of National Unity.

“We do remain in touch with the Afghan Government and we will remain in touch as they move forward,” Trudeau said in response to a question if U.S. needed to send a delegation to Afghanistan to help resolve the issue over the implementation of the NUG Formation Agreement.

Last week, Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah denounced President Ghani as unfit to govern over the issues of electoral reform, distribution of national electronic ID card, making decisions unilaterally and failing to consult with him on appointments.

Abdullah said, “Over a period of three months you don’t have time to see your chief executive one-on-one for even an hour or two? What does your highness spend your time on?”.

The two governing partners were supposed to meet each other on Saturday, but the meeting did not occur after President Ghani refused to meet Chief Executive Abdullah.

Later, Abdullah met with a large number of his political supporters and announced in a gathering of his supporters that he will stand firm on his demand of the implementation of the NUG Formation Agreement.

In addition, a group of diplomats, including representatives of the U.S., UK, India, Turkey, Denmark, the UN special envoy for Afghanistan, the EU especial representative and the US-led NATO commander in Afghanistan met with the Afghan Chief Executive and discussed the recent political developments in Afghanistan.

By: Hesamuddin Hesam