Musharraf calls for better economic conditions in Afghanistan

President General Pervez Musharraf has called on the international community to create better economic conditions within Afghanistan to facilitate the return of Afghan refugees to their country. The President made these remarks on Friday in a meeting with Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), who is currently on a visit to Pakistan. Musharraf said better economic conditions in Afghanistan could be created through co-ordination of the Afghan Government and United Nations organisations, with speeding up reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes and projects in Afghanistan.
He said Afghanistan was primarily an agrarian economy and assistance should be focused on improving conditions on the land. This could be done by rehabilitating and improving the water management and access to water systems in all localities and through assistance in providing fertiliser, seeds and other inputs as well as developing farm to urban areas road systems.
He said the improvement of the overall agricultural infrastructure in Afghanistan would also provide a necessary and urgently required modality for decreasing and eliminating poppy cultivation which had extremely injurious effects within Afghanistan, neighbouring countries and beyond.
Musharraf reiterated the proposal that he had made to the previous UNHCR High Commissioner Lubbers, that rather than the UNHCR maintaining refugee camps in Pakistan, along the border areas, these should be relocated within Afghanistan.
He recalled that Pakistan, despite limited assistance from the international community had hosted a very large number of Afghan refugees for over two decades.
President welcomed the Goodwill Ambassador's second visit to Pakistan and conveyed Pakistan's appreciation to her for finding the time to help attract the attention of international community for the continuing needs of over three million Afghan refugees still in Pakistan.
Angelina Jolie thanked the President for seeing her, for his deep concern for the Afghan refugees and for his suggestions on how conditions could be facilitated within Afghanistan for their return.
She also appreciated the President's role in building up multidimensional relations with Afghanistan, which provided an overall favourable environment for the refugees.
She assured the President that in her contacts with other countries and leading personalities world-wide, she would continue to bring this important issue to their notice.