US Secretary of State John Kerry sought on Friday to mediate an end to the political crisis in Afghanistan, warning that a bitter dispute over presidential polls threatened the country’s future.
As the top US diplomat met separately with the rival candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, Kerry stressed that results released Monday showing Ghani in the lead were “preliminary”.“They are neither authoritative nor final, and no-one should be stating a victory at this point in time,” Kerry said, as he held back-to-back meetings in the heavily-fortified US embassy.
“We want a unified, stable, democratic Afghanistan. It is important that whoever is president is recognised by the people as having become President through a legitimate process,” he said.Despite Monday’s announcement, Abdullah, who has already once lost a presidential bid in controversial circumstances, has declared himself the true winner, saying massive fraud robbed him of victory in the June 14 run-off vote.