“My trust with America is not good,” Karzai said at a meeting of tribal elders and political leaders in Kabul. “I don’t trust them and they don’t trust me. During the past 10 years I have fought with them and they have made propaganda against me.”

His remarks were made at the Loya Jirga – a grand council of tribal elders and political leaders – to support the new security deal governing relations between the U.S. military and the Afghan government for years to come…

“In the past 12 years we have had both good and bad times with the U.S.,” he said. “Sometimes our relations are good and sometimes the relations are terrible. At some points, I thought about telling the U.S. to just leave Afghanistan and we will deal with our own situation. But I was always very patient and thinking about our country. We should be careful not to take a wrong step forward.”