Kabul, December 18: A senior diplomat who was fired from the UN mission in Kabul lashed out yesterday at claims by his former boss that he concocted a plan to oust the discredited Afghan president Hamid Karzai and replace him with someone more acceptable to the West.
Peter Galbraith, an American – whose abrupt departure from Afghanistan in September cast a troubling light on allegations of voter fraud during the presidential elections in August – told The Independent that the allegations against him were false. “It didn’t happen, no way,” he said. He also intimated that the claims may have been planted in the US media by the United Nations, noting that it emerged barely six days after he initiated legal action against the world body.
Mr Galbraith held the number two spot at UN headquarters in Kabul until he was sacked after clashes with the top UN representative there – Kai Eide of Norway – on the handling of the fall-out from the crooked election.
–Agencies