Vice-President Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum has been refused an American visa due to the alleged killing of hundreds of Taliban prisoners by his militia, a media report said on Tuesday.
Dostum was eager to visit Washington,which has given Afghanistan billions of dollars in aid since Taliban’s ouster from power in 2001, this month, an influential American newspaper said.
The vice-presidential trip was aimed at discussionwith US administration officials how best to defeat the resurgent Taliban, The New York Times reported.
However, the Uzbek leader was barred from visiting the US. Unnamed Afghan and US officials were quoted as saying the visa denial was communicated to the Afghan government days before Dostum was to leave for New York and Washington.
Subsequently, the Afghan government quietly scrapped the VP’s visit to avoid what the NYT called a “humiliating public spectacle”.Accused of war crimes, Dostum is not welcome in the United States.
Asked about the visa refusal, the State Department said it could not discuss individual cases for privacy reasons. But for years, there has been broad agreement among American officials about The State Department has called him “the quintessential warlord.”
Dostum said in an interview on Saturday he had scrapped his trip due to the tenuous security situation in the country. He also planned to an address a special session of the United Nations General Assembly on drug trafficking.
