Karzai was adviser to Unocal !!

Karzai was adviser to Unocal !!

by Grattan Healy

Fri, Mar 1 2002, 11:50pm <grattan_healy@compuserve.com>

Afghan Leader in cahoots with US on gas pipeline? On Feb 8th in Islamabad, the US favoured Interim Leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, spoke in favour of the much discussed gas pipeline, proposed by Unocal. According to Le Monde, and El Mundo, he was previously an adviser to that company. We all wondered where the hell he popped out of. 'War on terror' my eye. More like 'war for energy'?

LE MONDE | 13.12.01 | 18h07

Hamid Karzai, un Pachtoune nomm prsident Hamid Karzai, a Pashtoun, named President

Le Monde <http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3210-7019-254716,00.html>

TRANSLATION OF FOURTH PARAGRAPH FROM THE TOP

Aussi à l'aise à discuter accroupi sur un tapis que dans un salon à Washington ou à Londres, Hamid Karzaï a une large connaissance du monde occidental. Après Kaboul et l'Inde où il a étudié le droit, il a parfait sa formation aux Etats-Unis où il fut un moment consultant de l'entreprise pétrolière américaine Unocal, quand celle-ci étudiait la construction d'un oléoduc en Afghanistan.

"...Hamid Karzai, who is as comfortable discussing sitting on a carpet as in a Washinton or London "salon", has a profound knowledge of the western world. After Kabul and India, where he has studied law, he completed his learnings [apprenticeship ?] in the USA, where he acted, for a while, as a consultant for the American oil company Unocal, at the time it was considering building a pipeline in Afghanistan..."

Yoshie Furuhashi <http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/m-fem/2001/msg00455.html>

Reuters: 18Feb2002 AFGHANISTAN: UNOCAL'S PEOPLE LEAD AFGHANISTAN.

American Unocal oil company has played a key role in appointment of Khamid Karzai as a leader of interim Afghanistan government, reads today's issue of Spanish Mundo newspaper. The newspaper writes that Karzai earlier worked for the company, which since long plans to build oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea to India and Pakistan via Afghanistan. Spanish newspaper also claims that in the 1980s Karzai cooperated with American authorities. Karzai established contacted with Americans via U.S. citizen of Afghanistani origin Zalmai Khalilzad, who is U.S. special envoy in Kabul now. In the 1990s Khalilzad also worked in Unocal, emphasizes Spanish newspaper. Unocal is involved in development of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field in the Azeri Caspian sector and is among the companies ready to take part in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline construction. The company's representatives have earlier repeatedly announced their plans to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and further to Pakistan. However, civil war in Afghanistan did not allow the company to carry its plans into life.

Source: TURAN NEWS AGENCY 18/02/2002

Reuters: 08Feb2002 PAKISTAN: Pakistan, Afghan leaders agree to revive pipeline. (incorporates earlier ENERGY-TURKMENISTAN-PIPELINE from ASHGABAT)

ISLAMABAD, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai said on Friday he and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had agreed to revive a plan for a trans-Afghan gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan. "Both sides have agreed that the construction of this pipeline will be very beneficial for both the countries as well as for the entire region," Karzai told a news conference after talks with General Musharraf. "We both have agreed on this," he said, calling the project "very essential". Karzai was in Islamabad on his first official visit to Pakistan after his U.N.-backed interim administration took office in December, following the collapse of the Taliban government in the face of U.S.-led military strikes. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, seeking new export outlets for his country's abundant gas reserves, said on Friday he hoped the fragile peace in Afghanistan would allow work to resume on the major regional natural gas pipeline. "Peace is finally being installed in Afghanistan. And we can now build a pipeline to Pakistan across its territory," state television quoted Niyazov as saying during a visit to eastern Turkmenistan. A consortium led by U.S. Unocal had originally aimed to build the $1.9 billion, 1,400-km (875-mile) pipeline to run from gas-rich Turkmenistan via northern Afghanistan. But in August 1998 Unocal halted development of the project after U.S. forces fired missiles at guerrilla camps in Afghanistan in the wake of bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa. Under the original plan, a 740-km (460-mile) stretch of the pipeline would run across northern Afghanistan. Turkmen officials say Niyazov plans to raise the issue with Karzai in the near future. Turkmenistan, a neutral country which steered a careful course between Afghanistan's purist Taliban movement and the opposition northern Alliance, supported U.S. strikes on its war-torn neighbour last autumn. Niyazov has not allowed coalition warplanes to use Turkmen airbases, although his country has become a key route for humanitarian cargo supplies to northern Afghanistan.

Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE - INDIA REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 08/02/2002

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