approved the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement in a vote considered to be in defiance of the Islamic Republic next door.
“Only five MPs voted against it,” said MP Shukria Essakheil, who added that 190 lawmakers out of the total of 249 were present for the vote.
The strategic partnership agreement, which applies to the decade after 2014 when all US combat forces withdraw from Afghanistan, was signed by President Hamid Karzai and US President Barack Obama earlier this month. Iran signaled its public displeasure with the pact, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast saying it contravenes Iranian interests and fails to adequately deal with the Afghan insurgency.
The Afghans, however, accused Iran of directly intervening in Afghan affairs, saying that the Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan had urged leaders of the Afghan legislature to vote against the pact. Ambassador Abolfaz Zohrevand rejected the comments, but he received widespread condemnation from the broad spectrum of the Afghan political landscape.
Reports also began circulating in the Afghan media that Iran had set aside $25 million to grease the palms of reluctant Afghan parliamentarians to vote against the deal.
That only five legislators voted against the pact is considered an assertion of Afghan defiance against its more powerful neighbor.
“There is no doubt that Iran tried to influence the vote, but it didn’t work,” said Baktash Siyawash who, at 26, is Afghanistan’s youngest parliamentarian.
“There were accusations that Iran has tried to pay millions of dollars to MPs, that is why the parliament decided to hold an open vote,” he said, adding, “Iran’s efforts to sabotage the vote failed.”
Lobbying a parliament by a foreign govrnment is not forbidden intervention. Many embassies in Washington have staff members assigned specifically to lobby the US Congress in matters that interest their governments. Payments of bribes, of course, is a different matter.
About 130,000 international troops are currently deployed in Afghanistan, about 90,000 of whom are American. All of the international combat troops will be withdrawn by 2014 and Afghan forces are expected to completely take over the security of Afghanistan.
A much smaller contingent of NATO forces will still remain in Afghanistan and shift from combat operations to training and assisting the Afghan troops, with the occasional surgical strike at terrorist groups. This worries Iran.
President Karzai tried to reassure Afghanistan’s neighbors after he signed the pact, saying the it does not allow Afghan soil to be used for aggressive attacks against any country and that there will be no permanent US military bases in Afghanistan.
“Any pact we sign is not against Iran and it’s for the stability of Afghanistan and expanding relations” with its neighrbors, Karzai said.