Rumsfeld's Visit to Afghanistan Canceled

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 28, 2003

Rumsfeld's Visit to Afghanistan Canceled

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's planned visit to Afghanistan has been canceled, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office confirmed here on Sunday.

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US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's planned visit to Afghanistan has been canceled, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office confirmed here on Sunday.

A presidential spokesman confirmed the cancellation but declined to respond to a question for the reason.

Rumsfeld, who is currently on a trip to Ireland and the Gulf region, was earlier scheduled to pay a stop-over visit here on Sunday to reaffirm Washington's commitments to the anti-terror mission and nation-building efforts in the country, sources here said.

According to an earlier schedule, Rumsfeld would pay a morale-raising visit to Bagram Air Base, the US military headquarters in Afghanistan, about 60 kilometers north of Kabul, before meeting Afghan leaders in the capital.

Over 8,000 US soldiers are deployed across country, hunting down remnants of the ousted Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorist network.

An official from the Afghan Foreign Ministry told Xinhua that the US defense secretary, with a visit to Afghanistan on his agenda, put off his visit for the time being and will make his trip here in the near future.

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