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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 006542 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/27/2016 
TAGS: PREL AF FR
SUBJECT: HEAD OF AFGHAN PARLIAMENT USES VISIT TO FRANCE TO 
CRITICIZE KARZAI, COURT EUROPEAN SUPPORT 
 
 
Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: In a meeting with Prime Minister Philippe 
Douste-Blazy during his first visit to France as speaker of 
the Afghan Parliament, Yunus Qanooni offered a pessimistic 
assessment of security, poppy cultivation and Afghan-Pakistan 
relations.  Although Qanooni reportedly offered nothing new 
of substance, the French MFA viewed the visit, which 
coincided with the Karzai-Musharraf-Bush summit in 
Washington, as a deliberate effort of Qanooni's to distance 
himself from President Karzai's alleged softer line on 
Pakistan and to present himself as a politician of 
international stature, capable of engaging with Europe.  The 
MFA drew the conclusion that Qanooni chose France as the 
destination for his first official visit outside Afghanistan 
to emphasize his eagerness for greater European involvement 
in Afghanistan. End summary. 
 
¶2. (C) Poloff met September 28 with MFA Afghanistan desk 
officer Pierre Fourier to discuss the September 22 meeting of 
Yunus Qanooni, speaker of the Afghan Parliament and former 
presidential candidate, and Minister of Foreign Affairs 
Douste-Blazy.  During the meeting, which lasted an hour and a 
half rather than the scheduled 30 minutes, Qanooni outlined 
his views on reconstruction, the deterioration of security 
along the Afghan-Pakistani border, the rise in poppy 
cultivation and its links to the Taliban, and the failed 
summit between Karzai and Musharraf in Kabul on September 6. 
 
¶3. (C) Fourier informed us that Qanooni told Douste-Blazy 
that he viewed Pakistan, a country he told the French was 
"duplicitous," as the greatest threat to Afghan security and 
sovereignty.  Qanooni described Pakistani President Musharraf 
as playing the "good student" by placating the U.S. with 
empty promises to act aggressively against Taliban forces 
operating from within Pakistan.  To support his contention, 
Qanooni cited the September 5 peace deal between Musharraf 
and tribal leaders in North Waziristan, a Pakistani border 
province reputed to shelter Taliban fighters, under which 
Musharraf agreed to withdraw all Pakistani troops in exchange 
for the promise (reportedly viewed as unenforceable by 
Qanooni) that Taliban fighters would cease attacks on both 
sides of the border and expel foreign fighters. 
 
¶4. (C) Fourier said Qanooni criticized Karzai for failing to 
condemn the "toothless pact" and offered a highly critical 
assessment of Karzai's bilateral diplomacy with Pakistan. 
During a summit in Kabul on September 6, Karzai had allegedly 
taken a wait-and-see attitude to the Waziristan pact, and 
thereby wasted "an historic opportunity" to negotiate with 
Musharraf as an equal and to insist on a Pakistani commitment 
to staunch the flow of Taliban fighters across the border. 
Qanooni called Karzai's reticence a "strategic error" that 
would give rise to more instability along the border. 
Fourier observed that although Qanooni did not propose any 
alternative course of action, he implied that he would stand 
more decisively against Pakistan than Karzai. 
 
¶5. (C) According to Fourier, Qanooni related to the French 
that the Taliban no longer possessed the financial resources, 
training capabilities or widespread support at the local 
level to launch a major, decisive attack on either Kabul or 
ISAF forces.  However, the Taliban's adoption of hit and run 
tactics and their ability to operate across the border with 
impunity strengthened their capacity to dig in and offer 
long-term resistance. 
 
¶6. (C) Qanooni painted a gloomy portrait of a country en 
route to becoming a narco-state, Fourier said. Qanooni 
characterized terrorism and drugs as different aspects of the 
same problem, and said that as long as the central government 
did not operate effectively in the south and east, both 
problems would only intensify. 
 
¶7. (C) Fourier said the MFA had not found anything 
substantively new in Qanooni's remarks--although Fourier said 
Douste-Blazy appreciated Qanooni's candor and grasp of the 
issues.  Fourier also noted that Qanooni had not expressly 
asked for additional troops or reconstruction funds, nor had 
he openly criticized the U.S.  (Comment: The French are 
undoubtedly aware of Qanooni's longstanding opposition to the 
U.S.).  That Qanooni chose to visit France at the same time 
that Musharraf and Karzai were scheduled to meet with 
President Bush in Washington, however, had led the MFA to 
view his timing as a message that Qanooni would welcome 
greater European involvement in Afghanistan, through 
partnerships and institutional cooperation if not necessarily 
troop deployments.  (Comment: Embassy Kabul would be in a 
 
PARIS 00006542  002 OF 002 
 
 
better position to judge, but another interpretation would be 
that Qanooni was merely looking for an audience he thought 
might be more open to his criticism of Karzai or a way to 
raise his own political profile vis-a-vis Karzai. End 
Comment). 
 
¶8. (C) Fournier said that Douste-Blazy and other French 
participants left the meeting with the impression that 
Qanooni was a "reliable" but aggressive politician, one 
inclined toward outspoken but measured criticism of the GOA 
and virulent opposition to Pakistan, and one likely to play a 
critical role in future Afghan politics.  Douste-Blazy 
reportedly told colleagues following the meeting that if 
Qanooni's intent was indeed to reinforce his stature as a 
politician of consequence that could act on an international 
stage, then he had succeeded.  However, Fournier noted that 
Qanooni had not evinced any presidential ambitions and did 
not seem to be polishing his diplomatic credentials for a 
second presidential run in the future. 
 
 
 
 
 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
STAPLETON