Waheed Omer, Director General at Office of Public and Strategic Affairs of the Afghan government, has reacted to remarks made by Joe Biden, former US Vice President, who is a Democrat candidate for the 2020 US presidential elections.
Mr. Biden, in a debate, has said that US efforts to build nation state in Afghanistan has failed. “With regards to Afghanistan, I was totally against the whole nation of nation building in Afghanistan. The only thing we should be doing is doing with terrorism in that region,” Biden said in Presidential Debate between Democrat candidates for US 2020 presidential elections.
Mr. Omer, however, has commented that, “we didn’t need you to build a nation for us” and that Afghanistan has been a nation for centuries.
“We were a whole country already. You came to defeat international terrorism that will help us all. We want you to see that through,” Mr. Omer noted.
In an apparent response to Biden’s remarks, EU Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Roland Kobia, said in a tweet that he thinks the Afghan people are able to build a nation. “The EU believes in nation-building in Afghanistan for all Afghans and is proud to contribute to it,” he added.
The US Democrat candidate has recently become known for his controversial remarks about nation building and US past efforts in Afghanistan.
In another debate held in September 2019, Biden said that Afghanistan “cannot be put together,” and it is “three different countries” with Pakistan controlling three provinces in the east.
US efforts to build national state in Afghanistan has long been a controversial debate not among US politicians but also in political circles of Afghanistan.
