Dubai: "America plans to have a robust military presence in Afghanistan after the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of ISAF troops," said General John Allen, Commander of the International Security Force in Afghanistan (ISAF).
The ISAF mission will end in 2014, and that structure will close. But Nato member states such as the US, Britain and France are in active discussions with the Afghan government about how to continue their support for Afghanistan, either individually or through Nato, Gen Allen said on the sidelines of a Nato security conference in Dubai.
They are currently discussing how to continue their presence for at least a decade until 2024 at the minimum, said Gen Allen, working under the long-term aims of the Strategic Partnership Accord.
The commitment to a long-term presence in Afghanistan has been important to what Gen Allen described as ISAF's success in dismissing Taliban claims that all they have to do is wait it out till 2014 and then they can walk back into Kabul and reclaim what they lost when Nato toppled their government in November 2001.
