Afghan president confirms receiving cash payments from Iran

KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted Monday that his office regularly received cash payments from Iran to pay for his “special expenses” but insisted it was through official channels.

“The Iranian government has been providing us with five or six or seven hundreds of thousands of euros once or twice every year,” Karzai told reporters in his fortified presidential palace.

“This is transparent,” the president insisted. “This is nothing hidden. We are grateful for the Iranian help in this regard.”

Karzai was responding to a report in The New York Times in which Tehran was accused of passing bags of money as part of a secret and steady stream of cash intended to promote Iran’s interest in Afghanistan.

The report, citing Afghan and Western officials in Kabul, said Karzai’s chief of staff, Umar Daoudzai, was working as conduit between the two capitals in the movement of millions of dollars in cash delivered to him in Iran or Afghanistan.

The cash was used by the president to pay Afghan politicians and tribal elders to secure their loyalty, according to the report.

Karzai said: “Daoudzai is receiving that help under my instruction.”