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| Nato chief sees no early exit from Afghanistan |
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
BRUSSELS: International forces should not expect to withdraw from Afghanistan in the near future, Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Monday, days after the launch of a new US strategy for the country.
“In my opinion, it is necessary to stay in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future,” he told reporters in Brussels, saying he had so far seen “positive reactions” to President Barack Obama’s announcement last week.
Obama set no timetable for a revamped strategy to quell a growing insurgency but shifted the focus towards training Afghanistan’s own security forces, and said the United States would not “blindly stay the course”.
Scheffer welcomed the plan to concentrate on defeating al-Qaeda militants rather than pursuing the Bush administration’s more ambitious aim of building democracy.
“I think the Obama plan is realistic about what can be achieved ... That means we will not be able to change Afghanistan into Switzerland in a few years’ time,” he said.
Obama will hold talks this week with Nato allies on a plan that envisages sending 4,000 US troops to train Afghan forces on top of a previously announced reinforcement of 17,000 extra US troops for the war effort.
That will bring the total of US forces in Afghanistan to 55,000 compared with 32,000 from remaining Nato members and other countries involved in military operations, leading some analysts to say the alliance could be increasingly sidelined.
De Hoop Scheffer insisted that must not happen and called on the 26-member military pact to play a full role in the effort.
“This is not President Obama’s war in the Nato sense. The allies need to do their part. I would not like to see a mission that is out of balance in this regard,” he said.
“The allies need to ensure that they all do their part,” he warned. “No complaints about Americanisation of this mission, if the other allies do not play their role.”
Nato is seeking two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) a year from the international community to help support Afghanistan’s security forces, the Financial Times reported on Monday. Scheffer told the paper that Tuesday’s conference on Afghanistan in The Hague was an opportunity to ask for pledges from outside the 26-member military alliance to help keep the country stable.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
