Arg, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly condemned the cartoon depicting the holy prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) in his interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN.

Regarding the cartoon, the President said, “We as Muslims, all over the world are angry for those cartoons appearing in the European press.”

”But for the newspaper to publish a cartoon insulting Prophet Mohammed, insulting the feeling of Muslims, is really, really bad. We feel angry about this. We strongly believe that it should cease to appear again.”

“The cartoons must stop coming again and again, must stop appearing, but I hope the western governments, the United States, the rest of the western world, the European governments, will also take a strong measure, because this is a matter of sentiments for one billion Muslims and condemn it together with Muslims. That would be a good thing.”

“I hope any other newspaper that does this will dismiss the people responsible for it. That is what we should seek: a strong apology, an action against those people, and then we should be satisfied with that. But we would also want very much that cartoons like this must never, never appear again. It's not good for anybody.”

Released by Office of the Spokesperson to the President - Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan