Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday in Savannah that the attack on Chinese construction workers earlier in the day "can not and will not" be able to derail the process for stability and more peace in Afghanistan.

Speaking on CNN after 11 Chinese construction workers were killed in northeastern Afghanistan Thursday, Karzai said the attacks "are a source of concern for us and are a source of concern for the Afghan people but these attacks cannot and will not be able to derail the process that we have for stability and more peace in Afghanistan and institutionalization in the country."

The violence was the work of "terrorists" and others who did not want Afghanistan to hold elections, scheduled for September this year, he said.

He acknowledged that the elections would be hampered if security went out of control in the war-ravaged country.

"If we do not provide the Afghan people with an environment of free voting and free choice of their candidates to vote for, definitely the Afghan people will have difficulties in casting their vote in the manner that they like," he said.

Karzai called for a swift deployment of NATO troops around the country before the elections.

"We hope that the NATO deployment, which is being considered, will take place before elections in parts of the country where we do not have enough security forces," he said.