We did not fund your opponents, US told Karzai

In the run-up to the Presidential elections last year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai alleged the US was funding his electoral opponents like Abdullah Abdullah, but America strongly refuted the charge.

"Karzai said reports indicated the United States was also funding Abdullah. I strongly challenged him and stated we are not funding any candidate," US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry said in a secret cable reporting about his meeting with Karzai on September 1, 2009.

"I further noted that repeating these kinds of rumors and unsourced reports was unproductive," he said in the cable, which was released by WikiLeaks.

According to the cable, Karzai told Eikenberry me that at his meeting with Ashraf Ghani, his opponent the night before the latter had offered to play the role of "intermediary" with the US.

"I told Karzai he had many of those already. Karzai said Ghani had stopped short of pledging his support but wants to play a useful role," the cable said.

"Mirwais Yasini, with whom he met on August 30, had allegedly been offered $100,000 by Abdullah but is close to accepting a role in Karzai's team," Karzai said.

Karzai then raised concerns about Iranian influence in the election, through funding of Abdullah to the tune of $80-100 million, he said.

"I replied that we think Iran had given money to all the candidates, Karzai did not disagree. On Iran's motivations, I said that it seemed less logical for them to want instability in Afghanistan but that we are more concerned than we were a year ago.

"Karzai stated that he sees Pakistan and Iran potentially collaborating to destabilize Afghanistan and act against the US," the cable reported.