Top NATO officials have said Afghanistan is far from ready to run the country on its own and have signalled that foreign forces are unlikely to leave the country anytime soon.
Mark Sedwill, top civilian NATO official in Afghanistan, said on Tuesday the attempt by President Hamid Karzai's government to reach out to the Taliban for political reconciliation is yet to make any significant headway. “My sense is ... essentially we're at the embryonic stage,” said Mr. Sedwill at a news conference at Washington's National Press Club. “The channels of communication are open. I wouldn't at this stage say that we've reached the point of real negotiation.” Mr. Sedwill, a former British Ambassador to Afghanistan, was in Washington to prepare for the Lisbon NATO summit scheduled for November. He pointed out it is unlikely that Taliban would join negotiations as a “movement” with the Karzai administration.
However, “significant leaders” in their individual capacity “seem to be willing to contemplate a future within the mainstream”.
The training of the Afghan military forces, to make them capable of taking on national responsibilities independently, was also encountering serious difficulties. According to head of the NATO training mission in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General William Caldwell, an additional recruitment of around 133,000 Afghan nationals would be required to meet the target of raising an Army and police force of around 305,000 by next year.
General Caldwell said during a Tuesday briefing in Brussels that special attention was required to train police and paramilitary forces. He added the training of Afghan Air Force personnel and medical staff should become another focal area.
On Monday, Lieutenant-General Nick Parker, another NATO functionary in Afghanistan, watered down the scale and significance of the reduction of foreign forces in July 2011.
He pointed out that only 2,000 American troops were expected to pull out then, which was not a number of much “strategic significance”. “It is entirely reasonable for there to be some drawdown of some sort, although I suggest that all the indicators I've heard is that this is not as significant as some people choose to make it out to be.” General Parker pointed out that a hasty withdrawal could be counterproductive as re-introducing troops, if required later, would become that much harder. “What we must not do is pull back and go blind, because it then becomes extremely difficult to re-intervene, if you need to,” he said.
