KABUL (Pajhwok): President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday called late Vice-President Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim as a man of principles and a good partner of him on important national interest issues.
After presiding over the state funeral service for the late VP, Karzai said his longtime and all-weather friend had departed forever. He called Fahim a brother, who spent his entire life in the service of his country.
“I used to address Mohammad Qasim Fahim with the title of Marshal during our meetings and telephonic conversations. We have a 12-year long friendship. We faced together both good and hard times,” Karzai recalled.
He continued Marshal Fahim was a great patriot and a friend through thick and thin. “We have the same stance on internal and external issues.”Karzai lauded Fahim for always promoting national interest.
"I lost my best friend and my brother," Karzai said, surrounded by tribal leaders and other Afghan dignitaries and foreign diplomats. "He was always with me in making important decisions on international and domestic issues."
The flag-covered coffin was then taken to a cemetery north of Kabul, where thousands of people thronged the ambulance as it carried the body to the gravesite.
Expressing his condolences to the bereaved family, Karzai said they should be proud of Marshal Fahim, who left the world while serving his motherland. “His memories would be always with us and remain alive in the history.”
“Death is a bitter realty we have to face one day, but a person never dies among his fellow-men, one who devotes his entire life to serving his people,” he added.
Thanking the president and local and foreign dignitaries attending the funeral prayers of his father, Mohammad Adib Fahim said lasting peace, safeguarding human rights, the Afghan pride and national integrity were among his father’s wishes.
“My father would always say that free and fair elections were the only way out to salvage the country,” Adib Fahim said.
Fahim died on Sunday of heart attack at his Kabul residence. The government has called for three days of national mourning period, during which the national flags are lowered half-mast.
President Hamid Karzai, high ranking government officials, family members of the late VP and a number of Afghan and foreign guests attended his funeral prayers held at the Presidential Palace.
Source/Fuente: http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2014/03/11/fahim-always-promoted-national-inte...
