BONN: Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday told a major conference on the future of his country after Nato combat troops withdraw in 2014 that it would need international help for at least another decade.
Karzai told around 1,000 delegates gathered in the western German city of Bonn for the one-day meeting that his government would battle corruption and work toward national reconciliation but it needed firm international backing.
“We will need your steadfast support for at least another decade” after the troops pull out, he said.
The meeting comes 10 years after another conference here put an interim Afghan government under Karzai in place after US-led troops ousted the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
However, Pakistan and the Taliban – both seen as pivotal to any end to the bloody strife in Afghanistan a decade on – have decided to stay away from Bonn, dampening already modest hopes for real progress.
Some 140,000 international troops are in Afghanistan, and all Nato-led combat forces are due to leave by the end of 2014, when Kabul will assume responsibility for the country’s security.
The event’s host, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, insisted there would be no rush to the exit.
“We send a clear message to the people of Afghanistan: we will not leave you alone, you will not be abandoned,” he said, in comments echoed by Chancellor Angela Merkel in a brief address.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the United States was ending a freeze on hundreds of millions of dollars in development funds due to financial reforms by Kabul.
Officials said Washington took its cue from the International Monetary Fund’s decision last month to approve a new loan for Afghanistan after a year of difficult talks stalled by the massive Kabul Bank scandal.
Rage over an air strike late last month by Nato troops stationed in Afghanistan that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers led Islamabad to snub the gathering.
US President Barack Obama called Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari Sunday to express his regrets over the “tragic loss”, saying the casualties were not intentional, but Islamabad remained unmoved.
Clinton lamented the boycott in her speech to the conference.
“The entire region has a stake in Afghanistan’s future and much to lose if the country again becomes a source of terrorism and instability – and that is why we would of course have benefited from Pakistan’s contribution to this conference,” she said.
“And to that end, nobody in this hall is more concerned than the United States is about getting an accurate picture of what occurred in the recent border incident.”
Germany called Pakistan’s absence a “setback” but organisers say they are confident Islamabad will also see itself as committed to the principles laid out in the meeting’s final declarations.
The Taliban, leaders of the country’s brutal, decade-long insurgency, have also stayed away, saying the meeting will “further ensnare Afghanistan into the flames of occupation”.
National reconciliation, along with the transition to Afghan sovereignty and international engagement after 2014, had originally topped the conference’s agenda.
But such hopes soured after tentative contacts collapsed and the September assassination of Karzai’s peace envoy, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, which was blamed on the Taliban, derailed any prospects of progress.
Karzai insisted he remained open to talks.
“The political process will continue to be inclusive, open to Taliban and other militants who denounce violence, break ties with international terrorism, accept the Afghan constitution and defend peaceful life,” he said.
Officials from the primary delegations spent much of the weekend thrashing out the conference’s written conclusions, which are expected to map out “mutual credible commitments” by Afghanistan and the international community after 2014.
Diplomats say Western countries will in particular seek to allay Kabul’s fears that a looming global recession will distract them from the enormous challenges facing the strife-wracked nation.
Suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices and other attacks already kill hundreds of civilians every year, and many Afghans worry that security will worsen after 2014, or even that civil war could reignite.
Meanwhile daily Bild reported citing German intelligence documents that Karzai was seeking constitutional changes to remain in power after his second and by law final term ends in 2014.
9:44 AM
McGhori
Posted in: INTERNATIONAL
