Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah on Monday said the recent statement by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Hizb-e-Islami leader, about Afghanistan’s National Hero Ahmad Shah Massoud are rooted from a reprisal and that those remarks will not affect the status of the country’s martyrs.
Abdullah said that Hekmatyar was seeking fame by making such ‘false allegations’.
“The remarks which take root from humiliation and reprisal will never harm the status and the name of the martyrs,” Abdullah said in the Council of Ministers meeting on Monday. “They will not achieve their goals and will not become famous by making such allegations.”
In a meeting with residents of northern Badakhshan province on Friday, Hekmatyar accused Massoud of relations with Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – during the civil war in Afghanistan.
“Someone asked (Ahmad Shah) Massoud that how you trust the Taliban? Massoud replied that our friends in the ISI have assured us that the Taliban will not create any problem for us,” Hekmatyar said.
Ahmad Wali Massoud, chairman of Massoud Foundation, termed Hekmatyar’s remarks ‘discriminatory’.
“Perhaps it is not easy for some individuals to tolerate hearing the name of the national hero (Ahmad Shah Massoud) and they cannot witness that the people remember him (Massoud) in a good way,” he said. “People know that who have been honored by God but those who have been given disgrace they will remain in objection.”
On the formation of the National Coalition for the Salvation of Afghanistan, Hekmatyar claimed that the founding leaders of the alliance were hoarding and building palaces.
He said that the High Peace Council did not have any role in the peace deal he signed with the Afghan government.
Hekmatyar made his first public appearance after at least 20 years in April. He signed a peace deal with government last year.
Late in June, Balkh governor Atta Mohammad Noor, the first vice president Abdul Rashid Dostum and the second deputy of the chief executive, Mohammad Mohaqiq announced the formation of the National Coalition for the Salvation of Afghanistan.