Afghanistan: Hamid Karzai thanks aid donors but says more help needed (VIDEO)

GlobalPost

Hamid Karzai told an international donor's conference in Tokyo on Monday that while he was encouraged by the pledge of $16 billion in international aid for Afghanistan, countries needed to do more to help root out corruption in his country.

"I'd like to thank all of those countries, all of those organisations that have pledged support for Afghanistan," the Afghan President told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.

However, he added, "it is not only the Afghan government that should work and succeed" in fighting graft.

"We cannot succeed without… cooperation from international donors as well."

Karzai said the selection process for projects funded by international money could lead to influence-buying and higher wages for foreign workers, which fueled resentment, the Associated Press reported.

The aid, aimed at helping Afghanistan’s transition after most foreign troops pull out in 2014, will be provided over the next four years, the AP wrote.

However, for the first time major donors, including the US, Japan, and Germany, stressed that the aid would be tied to economic and political gains.

Donors would measure progress in areas including women's rights, free and fair elections, and efforts to tackle drug trafficking and corruption, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"We have agreed that we need a different kind of long-term economic partnership, one built on Afghan progress in meeting its goals, in fighting corruption, in carrying out reform and providing good governance," Hillary Clinton reportedly said at the Tokyo meeting.

Clinton a day earlier announced during a surprise trip to Kabul that Afghanistan is now America's newest "major non-NATO ally."

The conference pledge came on the same day a graphic video emerged purporting to show Taliban militants publicly executing a woman accused of adultery, sparking international outrage.

More from GlobalPost: Afghanistan: Taliban publicly execute woman accused of adultery

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