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Khalilzad, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
WASHINGTON, JAN. 1. The U.S. President, Mr. George W Bush, has named Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad as special envoy for Afghanistan. Mr. Khalilzad is special assistant to the President for Southwest Asia, the Persian Gulf and other issues in the region, a post he will be retaining.
``The special envoy is a representative to the Afghan people as they seek to consolidate a new order, reconstruct their country and free it from the Al-Qaeda and Taliban control,'' the White House spokesman, Mr. Scott McClellan, said in a statement. ``The position... was established to underscore the President's support for these objectives''.
With the appointment of Mr. Khalilzad on Monday, the Bush administration has now three senior officials working on Afghanistan _ the other two being Mr. Richard Haass, Special Coordinator for Afghanistan Policy, and Mr. James Dobbins, special representative to the Afghan Opposition, which is now a part of the Interim Government in Kabul.
Born in Mazar-e-Sharif, Mr. Khalilzad has long been considered the administration's most experienced person on Afghanistan. He will be working very closely with the United Nations' Special Representative, Mr. Lakdhar Brahimi, who is presently overseeing Afghanistan's transition process.
Mr. Khalilzad has served U.S. Presidents Mr. Ronald Reagan and Mr. George Bush Sr. He was in the State Department between 1985 and 1989 as an advisor on the Soviet war in Afghanistan as also on the Iran-Iraq war. Between 1991 and 1992, he was a senior civilian official at the Defence Department for Policy Planning working under Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, currently number two at the Pentagon.
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