Afghan president seeks security aid
 |  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked for more international aid to ensure that September elections go on. |
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 Death of Chinese workers in Afghanistan raises security fears.
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CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai predicted Thursday that recent violence in Afghanistan will increase with the approach of national elections planned for September, and called for more international aid to ensure they are not derailed.
"We will definitely need more of the international security force assistance in Afghanistan," Karzai told CNN senior international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.
Still, he expressed confidence that the terrorists would not succeed. "These attacks cannot and will not be able to derail the process that we have for stability and more peace in Afghanistan and institutionalization of the country," he said from Chicago. "There is no way that terrorists can stop this process."
While Karzai was in Sea Island, Georgia, attending the Group of 8 meeting, gunmen in the northern Afghan town of Kunduz on Thursday killed 11 Chinese construction workers and wounded a number of others. (Full story)
Last week, the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres suspended operations after five of its workers were killed in an ambush.
Though he predicted such attacks will increase, "especially on soft targets, like the unfortunate incident last night," Karzai expressed confidence the attackers would not achieve their aim. "The Afghan people are very keen on having elections, and we will certainly reach the day when we will have elections in this country," he said.
Karzai said more NATO security forces would be needed to ensure a free and fair election, but he said he did not ask world leaders at the G8 to send troops. "I did mention security, but I didn't ask in that meeting for more troops," Karzai said.
Instead, he said, he focused on democracy in the Middle East "and what Afghanistan had achieved and what the problems were."
Afghan officials have complained publicly that they do not have enough forces to clamp down on warlords and other militants, including remnants of the Taliban, who were routed in 2001 by U.S. forces.
The Taliban have vowed to keep killing foreigners in order to disrupt the landmark elections, in which women will be able to vote and run for office.
The vote was originally scheduled for June, but was delayed to give more time for the country's 10 million eligible voters to register, Karzai said. So far, just 3.5 million -- one-third of them women -- have done so, he added.
But the exact date of the September vote remains unfixed. The joint Afghan-U.N. election committee "will have to decide in the month of September as to which date they would like to have the elections done," Karzai said.
Asked whether it was possible that the vote could be postponed again, Karzai said, "For now, I see no reason at all for further postponement."
Karzai said he disagreed with a U.S. government report that said the violence that has wracked the country is undercutting the democratization process and the reconstruction effort and threatening the country's stability.
"The Afghan people are very adamant to have this country turn into a nice country for them, and a country in which they will have economic opportunities, the right to vote, the proper institutions of the government."
He said Afghanistan's troubles "will remain with us for a number of years to come, as they are in the countries around us."
Though Karzai said Afghanistan needs economic and reconstruction aid as well as security assistance from the international community, he stopped short of saying he would ask for more U.S. troops when he meets next week with President Bush in Washington.
"We will be asking NATO to deploy in Afghanistan, as has been promised," he said. "If there is more assistance in terms of security from the United States, and if we need it, of course we would welcome it."
Karzai is planning to attend Friday's funeral in Washington for former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who in the 1980s gave arms and training to Afghan rebels in their fight for independence against the Soviets.
"We in Afghanistan remember President Reagan very, very fondly," Karzai said. "He's been a very good friend and ally."
Many of those fighters are now part of the Taliban.
