KABUL - President Hamid Karzai's spokesman on Monday denounced the latest report of the International Crisis Group (ICG) as foreign interference in the upcoming elections.
"There is a real risk that the regime in Kabul could collapse upon NATO's withdrawal in 2014," said Candace Rondeaux, the ICG senior Afghanistan analyst.

The report said the country was on course for another set of fraudulent elections and how that could undermine what little hope remained for stability after it took full responsibility for security.

According to the document, the government's credibility has not recovered since the chaotic presidential and parliamentary polls in 2009 and 2010, and so far, leaders had been unable to reverse the downward spiral.

Reacting to the report, Afghanistan: The Long, Hard Road to the 2014 Transition, the presidential spokesman told Pajhwok Afghan News: "We believe the report has particular political goals and agenda."

Aimal Faizi said the document sought to pave the ground for foreign meddling in the presidential ballot, due in 2014. The report continued no evidence that enabled its authors to justify their concerns, he added.

If the international community honored its commitments of long-term assistance that were held out at the Bonn and Chicago conferences, Afghanistan would never slip into a civil war after 2014, the spokesman observed.

"Looking back at the three decades of conflict, unrest and outside interference, Afghanistan can easily distinguish between its friends and foes. Afghanistan doesn't want a return to civil strife and stands united to defend its territorial integrity," he concluded. (Pajhwok)