KARZAI GIVES JAPAN PRIORITY TO ACCESS MINES

"Afghan President Hamid Karzai said this week that Japan -- not the U.S. -- takes priority over other nations when it comes to mining his country's vast mineral deposits.... He pointed to Japan's status as Afghanistan's second-biggest donor, and reasoned that Japan should enjoy special access to Afghan resources with estimated values that range from $1-3 trillion dollars. "Morally, Afghanistan should give access as a priority to those countries that have helped Afghanistan massively in the past few years," Karzai told the institute. "What . . . we have to reciprocate with is this opportunity of mineral resources, that we must return at the goodwill of the Japanese people by giving Japan priority to come and explore and extract," Karzai said."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/20/japan-has-priority-on-rig_n_618545.html