Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke Tuesday of a vision of Afghanistan paying its own way in the world within a decade after he arrived here for an international conference on his war-ravaged country.
Speaking after talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the president said he hoped donations to be pledged at the conference would help make his country autonomous.
"We have a plan for Afghanistan to take our country by the year 2014 to a higher income per capita, a higher state of legitimacy, a direct democracy for our people and more stability and peace," he told a joint news conference.
He said his government wanted to create "an Afghanistan that will no longer be a burden on the shoulders of the world and the countries friendly to it, an Afghanistan that will be able to pay for itself."
Schroeder promised "we will do everything we can to make this conference a success."
The two-day talks, starting Wednesday, are being co-chaired by the United Nations, Afghanistan, Germany and Japan and are drawing hundreds of ministers and officials from some 60 countries and organisations, including 20 foreign ministers.
The conference will assess progress so far in Afghanistan's reconstruction and decide what still needs to be done to make the central Asian country more secure, stable and peaceful.