Afghan president 'isolated'

Kabul: Afghanistani President Hamid Karzai admitted on Friday that he had not spoken to Barack Obama since the new US president assumed office last month and conceded that he had become increasingly isolated as American support drained away.

Karzai's closest allies have expressed concern that the Afghan president has been overwhelmed by running a country immersed in a rising insurgency. After months of rumours and backbiting in official circles, he acknowledged his vulnerability.

"I am exhausted," Karzai said. "I get very little time to spend with myself. It's constant, daily non-ending activity in Afghanistan.

"The work is very very hard. I've done it, I'm glad that I've kept our country together and Afghanistan has become the home of all Afghans and a lot has been achieved."

His remarks came as Richard Holbrooke, Obama's new envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, visited Kabul to assess progress in the fight against the Taliban and other militants. Karzai said that he and Obama had last exchanged views before last month's inauguration.

Leading figures in the new American government have sharply criticised the Afghan leader. Vice-President Joe Biden walked out of a dinner with him last year after a heated row about corruption and the drug trade. Holbrooke derided the Afghan government as "weak" after a private trip to the country.

Washington is expected to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan soon in the hope that an Iraq-style surge can halt a spiral of violence. But the failure to create a functioning democracy haunts the effort to stabilise the country.

In an interview on Friday night with Sir David Frost on Al Jazeera television, Karzai blamed tensions on American military operations that killed civilians and said his people needed a leader to stand up for them. With an election looming as soon as August, Karzai is likely to return to that warning as he struggles to stop America and its allies supporting an alternative.

Britain has appointed its ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherrard Cowper-Coles, as regional envoy to complement Holbrooke's efforts.

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009