DHAKA: Visiting Afghan president Hamid Karzai said in New Delhi on Saturday he no longer ‘trusts’ the United States, accusing the Americans of saying one thing and doing another in his troubled homeland.

Karzai’s statement to journalists came a day after he insisted he would not be ‘intimidated’ into signing a security pact allowing US troops in Afghanistan to stay on after next year.

‘I don’t trust them,’ Karzai said in a wide-ranging discussion at a local hotel in which he singled out a letter US president Barack Obama wrote last month assuring him that US forces would ‘respect’ the safety of Afghans in their homes.

Karzai was speaking on the second day of a three-day visit to India during which the United States hopes New Delhi can persuade him to sign the troubled troop deal.

BDST: 1638 HRS, DEC 14, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor