Nato leaders said at a summit here on Thursday they wanted to deepen ties with Pakistan and strive to boost security along its border with Afghanistan.
In a document laying out their “strategic vision” for Afghanistan’s future, the leaders said the conflict-torn country’s neighbours have an important role to play in helping build a better future.
They said they “look forward to deepening our engagement with Afghanistan’s neighbours, particularly Pakistan” and “support efforts to improve security and stability along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border”.
The leaders also encouraged “further cooperation and intensified dialogue” between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They pledged to boost troop numbers in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, better share the burden of combat and ease restrictions on use of their forces.
They also pledged to “provide our military commanders with the tools they need for success by filling remaining … shortfalls including forces, training teams and enablers”. The leaders also committed to “provide maximum possible flexibility of use of our forces”.
The document is aimed at convincing sceptics about why Nato has undertaken what is its most ambitious mission ever and what it plans to achieve. Its release came as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper renewed a call for extra troops, even after France committed some 800 more soldiers.
“It is not enough overall,” he told reporters. “We continue to need more troops in Afghanistan,” he added. A separate and secret political-military plan, also finalised by the leaders here, sets benchmarks for success for all international actors, including donors, non-governmental organisations and the UN.
In the vision plan, the leaders said they would “continue to ensure that every measure is taken to avoid civilian casualties”. They also promised to “enhance our capacity to counter the extremist propaganda”, a day after launching a new Internet television channel to try to defeat the Taliban in their media war.
Nato raised “substantially” more fresh troops for Afghanistan and agreed on a longer term strategy to shift security responsibilities to Afghan security forces, Nato officials said. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the Afghan security forces would be ready to assume the responsibility for security in Kabul by August, the first step in a gradual transition of control over security from a 47,000-strong Nato-led force.
Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also joined the Nato leaders in pledging a better coordinated, comprehensive international effort to stabilise the country. “Nato’s answer today is help is on the way,” said US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy told the summit that France would deploy an additional battalion, or about 800 troops, to eastern Afghanistan, freeing up US troops to serve as reinforcements in the south.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised the French contribution but warned that more troops were needed. “It is not enough overall,” Harper told reporters here. “We continue to need more troops in Afghanistan. We don’t expect these troops overnight.”
Canada had threatened to withdraw its forces when their mandate ends in February 2009 unless other allies provided a 1,000-strong battle group to reinforce its troops in Kandahar. Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, however, said Nato had made “tremendous progress” in generating forces for the ISAF, citing a 14,000-troop increase in the size of the force since January 2007.
“Today more nations stepped forward with offers that will raise that total again, and very substantially,” he said at a news conference with Karzai and Ban. Scheffer did not say how many troops were offered and made reference only to the French offer. But he said it satisfied Canada’s demand for reinforcements.
“As far as he is concerned, this substantial offer and the shift of American forces will fulfil the Canadian condition,” he said. Hadley, for his part, told reporters the troop contributions should number several thousand.
“I have got a list of about 12 or 13 countries that have made contributions,” he said. But he added that the list was not definitive and some contributions were in the form of development aid, rather than troops. But the commander of the ISAF, General Dan McNeill, has requested as many as 10,000 more troops in the form of two combat brigades and a brigade of trainers.
Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the EU Commission, warned in remarks prepared for delivery that the Afghan government needed to display greater political will for the international political and economic reconstruction efforts to succeed.
“We thus wish to see enhanced Afghan leadership and responsibility. Without that, we will not be able, together, to address the remaining challenges and create a stable, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan,” he said.
Nato allies are expected to pledge 18 new helicopters to be deployed in Afghanistan and eight nations have signed up to a fund to support forces there, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.
“The most immediate need in Afghanistan is helicopters. And I think we will be able to announce by the end of tomorrow that 18 new helicopters have been pledged by the different countries,” Brown told reporters.
Brown said when countries were either unwilling or unable to provide personnel on the ground in Afghanistan they could now contribute either money or equipment to a trust fund. “Eight countries have already agreed to be part of the trust fund that we, the UK, have set up after discussions with the French,” Brown said. He did not name the contributors. “This is going to be the model for the future,” he added. “This will become known as the burden-sharing summit,” said Brown.
Here are some key points from their statement.
COMMITMENTS
— provide military commanders with resources to fill shortfalls in the ISAF, including forces and training teams for the Afghan forces.
— provide “maximum possible flexibility of use” of forces by the ISAF commander. This is a reference to “caveats”, which national governments impose on the use of their forces.
— take every measure to avoid civilian casualties
— provide training teams and equipment to get an effective 80,000-strong Afghan National Army by 2010.
GOALS
— “extremism and terrorism will no longer pose a threat to stability.”
— Self-sufficient Afghan security forces, in the lead in operations
— Afghan government able to extend good governance, reconstruction and development throughout the country, to the benefit of all citizens. óóAgencies
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