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Rt, 17 October 2016

Fifteen years after the American invasion, Afghanistan still remains a battlefield between the government in Kabul and Taliban forces. Despite millions of dollars spent on attempts to fix the broken region, the US has achieved little – and is steadily drawing down their presence in the country. As the Taliban widens its offensive, taking over entire cities and gaining control in some of the country’s provinces, will the Afghan Army ever be able to hold on its own? Over a decade and a half after the US-NATO invasion – why is Afghanistan still as unstable as it was before? We ask the country’s former President – Hamid Karzai.

Sophie Shevardnadze: The former President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, welcome to the show, it's always great to have you with us. So, Mr. Karzai, the Americans have been fighting in Afghanistan for 15 years now - is their presence a curse or a blessing for your country?

Hamid Karzai: In the beginning, the arrival of the Americans in 2001, together with the rest of international community, Russia included in support of it - was a blessing. We were liberated from a creeping invasion by a neighbouring country and the Afghan people joined hands and we did very well. But subsequent to that liberation, within a few years what was then called the "War on Terror", unfortunately, was not conducted properly, nor was it conducted in the right place. The Afghan people were made the victims and that's how things changed wrong. Today, as you see, things are not happy in Afghanistan, we have tremendous insecurity, so today, as far as security is concerned, and the campaign against extremism is concerned, we are unhappy.