KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Kabul has issued a thinly veiled warning to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that harsh criticisms of the West could jeopardise the troops and funding critical to the Afghan government's survival.
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said he found comments from "some" Afghan leaders "hurtful and inappropriate," according to a transcript of a speech released late on Sunday.
Although Eikenberry did not mention Karzai by name, the speech appeared to be a direct response to a string of verbal broadsides against Western troops serving in Afghanistan and the diplomatic and aid programmes that accompany them.
In one recent fiery speech Karzai warned that foreign soldiers risked being seen as occupiers because of civilian casualties they caused. Last week he said the West was polluting the country with weapons containing toxic chemicals.
Eikenberry said those comments left him ashamed and speechless in front of the relatives of U.S. war dead.
"When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look at these mourning parents, spouses, and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply," Eikenberry told an audience of students and academics at Herat University in western Afghanistan.
"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," he added, in a personal addendum to a speech on education and transition.
Karzai's office declined to comment immediately comment on Eikenberry's statement.
He was speaking as U.S. President Barack Obama mulls how steep a U.S. troop drawdown pledged to start in July should be.
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