Kabul: Afghanistan is ready and willing to speed up taking over responsibility for all military operations from the Nato forces in the country, said President Hamid Karzai at a press conference in Kabul.
He was talking during a surprise two-day visit by Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen who is accompanied by the 28 members of the North Atlantic Council, Nato’s governing body.
Karzai’s optimistic attitude contrasted with Rasmussen’s more deliberate approach. While Karzai bluntly said that “we are ready to complete the transfer,” Rasmussen took a more measured approach when he repeatedly referred to the timeline defined at the Nato meetings in Chicago and Lisbon under which security in the remaining parts of the country would move to the Afghan leadership during 2013 and the final withdrawal of combat troops would be at the end of 2014.
Rasmussen agreed that the transition of military and operations to the Afghan leadership has successfully happened in districts covering 75 percent of the population. He also pointed out that violence has gone down, and that Afghans lead on 80 percent of operations.
He agreed with Karzai that aim was for Afghan forces to take full responsibility for all security matters, and that after 2014 when the mandate ends for ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, future international forces will only offer training, advice and assistance.
Much of Nato’s work in Afghanistan for the past two years has been focused on training and supporting Afghanistan’s new army and police forces, and an elaborate process of transition from Nato to Afghan forces is well underway.
“When we end our current combat operation by the end of 2014, we will have a very strong Afghan security force to take full responsibility for the security all over Afghanistan,” Rasmussen had reported to the Nato defence ministers in Brussels. “I feel confident that the Afghan security forces will be able to take such full responsibility.”
Rasmussen was at pains to dismiss a suggestion that the international community would desert the Afghans. “We are committed to the country, and in Chicago Nato defined a training mission that will take over from ISAF after 2014,” he said, speaking of a continuing commitment to security in Afghanistan.
But he also was very clear that the military task is not enough, and economic and social development are also vital for long term success. “In addition, the whole international community has committed to help development and capacity building, as was defined in the Boinn, Kabul and Tokyo meetings,” said Rasmussen.
Elections
Karzai was determined that there would be no international involvement in the running of the next presidential elections which are due in 2014, and called for the removal of two non-Afghan members of the Electoral Complaints Commission whom he described as “against Afghanistan’s sovereignty”.
Karzai’s implication that the election went smoothly contrasted with previous reports on the 2009 elections. The first round was marred by allegations of widespread fraud when the Electoral Complaints Commission refused more than 500,000 votes for Karzai as fraudulent. The second round was stopped by the withdrawal of the challenger Dr Abdullah Abdullah who said that he would not stand since a “transparent election is not possible.”
Looking back at the two elections that he won in , Karzai said that “we needed the backing of the international community for the first elections, but we are forced to accept their presence in the second election in 2009,” he said.
Looking ahead to the elections in 2014, Karzai said yesterday that “we are ready to have international observers, but control of the election must be in Afghan hands.”
