In a snub to its Western backers, Afghanistan joined Syria and Venezuela this weekend to become one of the few countries to publicly support Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea (TOLO News). On Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s office released a statement saying: “[W]e respect the decision the people of Crimea took through a recent referendum that considers Crimea as part of the Russian Federation” (NYT). In an email to the New York Times, Aimal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman, argued that the Russian annexation of Crimea was a “legitimate move” and that “Afghanistan always respects the free will of the nations on deciding their future.”
The Times’ report also notes that while “becoming the first Western-backed democracy to express support for the widely denounced referendum in Crimea might seem an odd tack for Afghanistan, which is heavily dependent on assistance from the United States and European countries,” “Russia’s insistence that it is righting a historical wrong” and that Crimea should have never been ceded to Ukraine, resonates with Afghans, who have long believed they “were unjustly cut off from their brothers and sisters” in Pakistan when Britain created the Durand Line separating the two in 1947.
The move also comes as Moscow is ramping up its investment in Afghanistan. The Washington Post’s Kevin Sieff noted on Friday that Russia is “rebuilding the relics of the Soviet occupation and promoting its own political and cultural prowess,” by delivering new equipment to old Soviet factories, building a Russian Cultural Center in Kabul, and rehabilitating rundown housing complexes …
