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When we get peace in Afghanistan, we'll go to New Zealand to learn best practices for raising sheep. We'll go to Switzerland and study hydroelectric projects.
Every global leader that I have seen has at least agreed on one point: I do have the world's most difficult job. But I hope to make it easier for my successor.
You would think that the U.S. government would not think that American firms needed subsidizing to function in developing countries, provide advice, but they do.
We will not let the price of peace be greater than the price of war, we will firmly safeguard the achievements of the past 13 years under former President Karzai.
There's a Darwinian struggle amongst terror groups for hegemony. Da'esh has broken out of the pack because Al-Qaeda and the rest rendered allegiance to Mullah Omar.
Do not ever threaten an Afghan with violence. We will rise as one and we will face every threat the way we have taken on thousands of previous armies and conquerors.
You know, America has profoundly shaped me, and I have two American children and unbelievably rich friendships so it will always be a source of joy and good memories.
Money is not capital in most of the developing countries. It's just cash. Because it lacks the institutional, organizational, managerial forms to turn it into capital.
We live in an interconnected world, and you cannot prevent people from leaving. What you need to do is to create opportunities. At the same time, people are also coming back.
Particularly the mark for success for us would be that a woman can not only walk in the streets of every major city, but can go from one province to another without any hindrance.
We are not a battlefield and we will not allow anyone to use our territory against any of our neighbour, but we will not allow our neighbours to use our territory this way either.
We need to get a stable Afghanistan that can ensure the security of Americans, Europeans, and others on the one hand, but more fundamentally our own democratic rights and institutions.
My central objective is, turn Afghanistan's location into a greater asset. Central Asia is becoming Afghanistan's major trading partner. The vision of connectivity is really important.
People are easily shocked when their routine is disrupted and their ease of travel is restricted. We are dealing with a complete new face of terrorism - killing for the sake of killing.
The national unity government is a necessity in this country and I am happy to serve it. We have negotiated for months to create a government, but Belgium also went for a year without one.
Afghanistan's geographical location gives it the opportunity to become one of the biggest transit routes in the region. It can connect Southern, Eastern and Central Asia to the Middle East.
Terrorism attacks peoples' trust in the system of their state. There is protection, but only if there is collective action and collective understanding about how to really deal with this phenomenon.
If election is your goal, you're never going to engage in reform. Reform has to be your goal. Election is the means. You run for office in order to do something, not in order to perpetuate yourself.
There won't be some overnight miracle cure. But the measures I take will be sustainable. Our goal is to cease food imports within four years. This will create a minimum of 2 million jobs in agriculture.
Afghanistan has the capacity to become an industrialized country because of its mining and agriculture sectors. We can also create jobs for educated men and women by investing in information technology.
Economics taught in most of the elite universities are practically useless in my context. My country [Afghanistan] is dominated by drug economy and a mafia; textbook economics does not work in my context.
The key demand for me from the public across the 34 provinces is to transform the state into an instrument of the rule of law, transform the economy into a productive system and change the education system.
Either we all commit suicide together or guarantee institutions that provide stability for all. We need reforms that are enduring, so people aren't frightened. Our first year is going to be very interesting.
Afghanistan is developing its infrastructure to come up with a new direction of connectivity through energy transmission and modernisation of transport sector in an effort to cater to needs of modern day age.
I want to differentiate between stability and security: Stability comes from the hearts of people and acceptance of the judicial system. Security comes from the barrel of a gun and the threat of the use of force.
The bureaucratic culture that we [Afghanistan] have inherited is an obstacle. Hierarchies may be extremely efficient for dealing with certain events, but they are not quick in responding to global, flexible networks.
President Karzai was an accidental president. There was no paradigm for the conditions he faced, because no one could have imagined 9/11. He had to improvise under very difficult conditions to hold this country together.
We develop sentiments that we are only going to work with people like us. But you don't build up a nation by working with people like you. You overcome a history of conflict by reaching out to people very much unlike you.
I don't want anything for myself. I want everything for Afghan. I worked pro bono for 13 years. I didn't hesitate for one moment after 9/11 to resign from my position of comfort at the World Bank in New York and to come and serve.
The commitment to civil liberty is going to be reasserted strongly. But the concept of liberty is under attack, and our definition of insecurity, security and threats will change fundamentally. The depth of the attack on liberty will be felt painfully.
None these organizations [terrorists] could continue operating without the narcotics networks, human-trafficking and oil smuggling. Addressing it requires a truly creative global response similar to that used to stand up against Germany's aggression in World War II.
We don't have warlords. We have strongmen. They control provinces with military forces. These men at one time controlled territory; they have now been transformed into businessmen and politicians. Today our national security forces are built to control the provinces.
We've had a difficult legacy of 40 years, and cleaning up is not going to be a one day job. But we are engaged in a systematic effort, we have not allowed formation of new militia groups, and we are reforming the local police systematically so that there won't be abuse.
We are organized by territories, whereas terrorists are organized into networks. States are very slow and terrorists are extremely fast. Intelligence sharing needs to expand beyond the regional and become global and not country-focused. We need to acquire speed and agility.
Peace cannot come without the engagement of those who have been before. Gen. Dostum will make peace possible. He was engaged in conflict of the past. Forgiveness is an extremely important part of our culture. But, like Rwanda and South Africa, we need to fashion our own solution.
Economics taught in most of the elite universities are practically useless in my context. My country is dominated by drug economy and a mafia. Textbook economics does not work in my context, and I have very few recommendations from anybody as to how to put together a legal economy.
Our current administration is a patchwork - some from the French, some from the Swiss, the Turks, the Ottomans; then the Russians came; now we have a global presence. We need to create a system that is organic and can function for the whole state. Currently, foreign policy here is domestic policy.
We need to create jobs for 300,000 youth graduating from high school in the next three years. We need to produce growth so we can have an economic system that can turn our natural wealth into a productive system. We need services, because poverty reduction cannot take place without effective citizenship.
As the leader of a country, you are not free to enjoy the luxury of such feelings. The Afghan people want peace, which requires persistence. We are determined to defend our country, and the whole region and the entire world understands the justice of our cause and the principled way in which we have engaged in it.
When I first raised the issue of the so-called Islamic State at the Munich Security Conference in February, speaking about its economy, its flexibility and pathology, people thought I was trying to scare them. But now we have experienced just that. If al-Qaida was version 2.0 of terror, then the Islamic State is version 5.0.
Organizations are accumulations of historical debris. They are not consciously thought. So when you ask the Education Ministry 'What's your core function and who's your client?' they laugh at you. When I say that the client is the Afghan child - and the Ministry is an instrument, not the goal - it's greeted with shock. It's a new idea.
The Americans made the decision out of principle to buy Russian equipment for us because our pilots and mechanics were trained on Russian aircraft. But, then, as a result of the Ukraine crisis, the US Congress imposed sanctions on Russia and the equipment could no longer be delivered to us. I am proud of our security and defense forces.
We have sacrificed and we have endured extreme hardship, but we have maintained the key goal - we have denied the enemy its main objective of creating two political geographies in this country through the all-out war which has been unleashed against us. If we had a first-rate air force, the nature of the conflict would be completely different.
We [Afghanistan government] were in the process of cleaning up the government when these attacks happened in the north - not only in Kunduz, but also in other provinces. Our special forces are limited - we cannot be everywhere at the same time and we had to defend every district regardless of how insignificant it might be, because of the very social and political makeup of this country.
Ninety percent of our police are fighting terrorists, so we don't have enough oriented towards their key duty, which is enforcement of the law. But these are precisely the inheritance that we want to overcome. Particularly the mark for success for us would be that a woman can not only walk in the streets of every major city, but can go from one province to another without any hindrance.
Peace is our goal, but peace from strength, an enduring peace that will bring regional cooperation. What we have emphasized and agreed is that we are strategic partners. We are bound by common interests and will act together to ensure both the safety of United States and the safety of Afghanistan. That is the important consideration. Numbers are a means; they are not an end in themselves.
We [Afghanistan] are constantly dealing with situations in which we must ensure that provinces or major cities do not fall into enemy hands. People need to understand that we don't have an air force and the forces that we do have used to get air support from NATO, which is no longer available. Our pilots have done wonders, but they are stretched thin. We are dealing with resources that have been spread thin.
What is common among all of these groups [Taliban, Islamic State etc.] is the intent to destroy. The majority of terrorists who come to Afghanistan are from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or North Africa. They were expelled from their countries and pushed to ours - this is their battlefield - and all of them, be it the Taliban or others, are interlinked with the criminal economy.
My immediate priorities are peace and stability. I want to differentiate between stability and security: Stability comes from the hearts of people and acceptance of the judicial system. Security comes from the barrel of a gun and the threat of the use of force. We're seeing violence at an unprecedented level. We've become numb to bloodletting. Enduring peace cannot come unless we build a state that can guarantee our individual rights and obligations.
My priority is inclusion and justice. We need a system of justice that is applied across the board. That is what this country is striving for. We've suffered from a variety of exclusions. In the past, I compared our situation to a person with scissors who first cut the sleeve, then the fingers, then our body politic to pieces. My job is to stitch the wounds together. We need an agenda of inclusion: the youth, the women, the poor feel an enormous sense of exclusion.