President Ashraf Ghani blamed the international community for keeping Afghans away from their fundamental right of peace for more than four decades and said that the people want permanent and dignified peace.
Addressing a ceremony on Armed Forces Day on Saturday, he said Afghan forces have played a prominent role in fighting international terrorism.
Referring to his recent address to the UN Security Council, President Ghani said his main sentence was that “for the last 40 years, the international community has kept a massive nation away from their fundamental right which is peace and this is unacceptable.”
“We want peace and we want dignified peace and a peace that is ensured by the power of our security and defense forces and with the will of the people. This peace will come,” he continued.
The violence must end and that there should be no more bloodshed and no one should remain deprived of education anymore, President Ghani added.
Afghans will decide on the next president and the next government, he maintained.
“The people of Afghanistan have elected their government and president and they will elect the next president of Afghanistan. It is the right of the nation and the security and defense forces will prove that change will be legal and based on the nation’s will; otherwise, the tenure of the Republic is clear.”
He said that the Afghan security and defense forces are conducting more than 90 percent counterterrorism operations.
“Today’s Afghanistan is not the one it was in the past, the one that was protected by others. Today, you are safeguarding it. We are very close to self-reliance,” he said.
Deputy Defense Minister Shah Mahmoud Miakhil said the Afghan government and the Afghan forces rendered a big sacrifice by agreeing to release the Taliban prisoners.
