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American Morning

Hamid Karzai Will Attend Flag-Raising Ceremony at Afghanistan's Embassy in U.S.

Aired January 28, 2002 - 09:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: "Up Front" this morning, President Bush will meet later today at the White House with Hamid Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan's interim government. And later in this hour, the visiting chairman will attend a flag-raising ceremony at his country's embassy.

CNN's Andrea Koppel is in Washington and joins us now with more on this historic and symbolic event.

Good morning. Thanks for joining us.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. Thanks you so much.

Well, I'm standing outside the Afghan embassy, which has been shuttered for the last five years, but as you mention, in about an hour the flag that's over my shoulder there, the black, red and green flag will be raised for the first time, and the man in attendance will be the new head of interim government, Hamid Karzai.

And so right now what we're waiting for, Paula, is Hamid Karzai to come out and officiate over this historic moment here a new chapter in U.S.-Afghan relations, and as you also mentioned, later today, he will go over to the White House to meet with President Bush. He's the first Afghan leader since 1963, when then King Zahir Shah invited by John F. Kennedy to come on over. So it's a special moment as far as the Afghan people are concerned, and he's also going to be President Bush's special guest of honor Tuesday evening at the State of the Union -- Paula.

ZAHN: Andrea, understand a great story behind the making of the flag and concerns not finished in time for today's ceremony.

KOPPEL: Yes. In fact a few moments ago spoke with one of two Afghan-American women who finished it about a day ago, this brand new flag, the one that's over my shoulder. It's not really going to be the official flag, because it's only an interim government in place. But these two women, who have been in this country for about 20 years, have decided that they wanted to try to help out and to show their patriotism, both here in the United States and for Afghanistan, and so they put together the flag that is going to be run up the flag pull in a few minutes. ZAHN: Before we let you get away, Andrea, I wanted to ask you a little bit about something not related to this, President Bush heading to China in February. But there's been very little comment coming from the administration about that report that a jet of the China's president was loaded with bugs. That's an allegation. Is the administration willing to say more?

KOPPEL: Well, no they're really keeping tight-lipped about it. They say it's for intelligence reasons, security reasons and what not. The Chinese, interestingly enough, are also being tight lipped about this, much in stark contrast to what happened last April when that EP- 3 surveillance plane was flying off the Chinese coast. The reason being, they're actually a few reasons, the plane was quite a luxurious one, I understand. It's a Boeing 767. That doesn't play well in a communist country. It was outfitted in a really extravagant way for China's president.

Secondly, there were about 20 Chinese air force officers who were supposed to be guarding it. They were not sure if this was corruption or incompetence that the U.S. was able to place so many bugging devices on this plane.

And thirdly, as you mentioned, President Bush is going to be going to China next month for his first official summit there. This is something that the Chinese and the U.S. obviously want to get off without a hitch. And making a big to-do about a bugged plane that supposed to go to China wouldn't help matters -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Andrea Koppel. We'll be coming back to you at the bottom half of the hour when this flag-raising ceremony takes place.

Thanks for that live report.

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