The youth are hurt. Our majority are youth, under 30. They have no hope. They don't get jobs.

There's no place for mob justice in Afghanistan.

What is common among all of these groups [Taliban, Islamic State etc.] is the intent to destroy. The majority of terrorists who come to Afghanistan are from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or North Africa. They were expelled from their countries and pushed to ours - this is their battlefield - and all of them, be it the Taliban or others, are interlinked with the criminal economy.

Terrorism attacks peoples' trust in the system of their state. There is protection, but only if there is collective action and collective understanding about how to really deal with this phenomenon.

Do not ever threaten an Afghan with violence. We will rise as one and we will face every threat the way we have taken on thousands of previous armies and conquerors.

Economics taught in most of the elite universities are practically useless in my context. My country [Afghanistan] is dominated by drug economy and a mafia; textbook economics does not work in my context.

The job of an elected president is to overcome the past and change the playing field.