Houten, Netherlands - At an April 16 meeting in Houten of Afghanistanis living in the Netherlands, Amrullah Saleh, former Head of Afghanistan's National Security Directorate (NSD), discussed the situation in their homeland. UPF Ambassador for Peace S.E. Taheri, Secretary General of the Nasr Foundation, was among the organizers of the meeting near Utrecht. UPF-Netherlands Secretary General Wim Koetsier talked briefly about UPF, complimented Mr. Saleh on his work for peace in his homeland, and presented him with a UPF Ambassador for Peace certificate.
At the end of the main part of the program, Mr. Koetsier was introduced to the meeting by UPF Ambassador for Peace S.N. Taheri, Director of the Nasr Foundation and Sadat Institute, who gave a short introduction to UPF in Farsi.
Mr. Saleh, who describes himself as a grass-roots politician following his departure from the NSD, was visiting the Netherlands primarily to participate in the World Foresight Forum in The Hague, April 13-15. He referred to the views of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister and presidential candidate in Afghanistan, who was visiting the US.
While Dr. Abdullah seems to see Iran as the greatest external threat, Saleh sees Pakistan as a fundamentally "deceptive" country; but both agree that the West needs to be consistent in its policies. While they are grateful for the assistance given by the West, they assert that if the West pulls out before "finishing the job," it will undermine the West's credibility should it want to intervene elsewhere; furthermore, the Taliban will regain power in Afghanistan and from there Al-Qaeda will again threaten the West.
The audience expressed hop that leaders in the West will listen to Amrullah Saleh and Dr. Abdullah. The West failed to listen to their leader and commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, when he came to the West in early 2001 to warn about the situation in Afghanistan, and the 9/11 attacks (following Massoud's assassination on September 9) were a consequence.
Note: In April 2001, the president of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, invited Massoud to address the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. In his speech, he asked for humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. Massoud further warned that his intelligence agents had gained limited knowledge about a huge-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil being imminent. For a review of US relations with Massoud, click here.