Pope inadvertently quotes Putin to chide West's Afghan war

MADRID (AP) — Pope Francis criticized the West’s caller engagement successful Afghanistan arsenic an outsider’s effort to enforce democracy.

But helium did it by citing Russian President Vladimir Putin portion reasoning helium was quoting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The pope was asked during a vigor interrogation that aired Wednesday astir the caller governmental representation taking signifier successful Afghanistan aft the United States and its allies withdrew from the Taliban-controlled state aft 20 years of war.

Francis said helium would reply utilizing a punctuation that helium attributed to Merkel.

“It is indispensable to enactment an extremity to the irresponsible argumentation of intervening from extracurricular and gathering ideology successful different countries, ignoring the traditions of the peoples,” the pope reportedly said.

The words were spoken past period by Putin successful the beingness of Merkel during her sojourn to Moscow.

Francis called for Christians crossed the satellite to prosecute successful “prayer, penance and fasting" for Afghanistan.