NATO leaders firm on Afghanistan
Source: Agencies |
May 21, 2012, Monday
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NATO leaders meeting yesterday were insisting that the Afghanistan fighting coalition will remain whole despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early. But facing plummeting public support for the war, they want to show they are moving quickly away from the front lines.
Afghanistan was expected to dominate the two-day NATO summit, which caps an extraordinary weekend of international summitry. On Saturday, leaders of the world's leading industrial nations in the Group of Eight wrapped up two days of talks, mostly about the European economic crisis, in the Camp David presidential retreat.
The NATO summit, in the US President Barack Obama's home city of Chicago, comes as public opinion in Europe and the United States is solidly against the Afghanistan war, with a majority of Americans now saying it is unwinnable or not worth continuing.
It also comes as newly elected French President Francois Hollande has said he will withdraw all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end - a full two years before the timeline agreed to by nations in the US-led NATO coalition.
But NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance remains committed to Afghanistan.
"There will be no rush for the exits," he said. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remains unchanged."
World leaders were looking at Afghanistan's post-conflict future - from funding for security forces to upcoming elections.
Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were due to meet on the sidelines of the summit yesterday with their hour-long discussion expected to focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban, a senior Obama administration official said.
Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, paving the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.
Obama and Karzai will discuss ways to ensure that political rivals can compete fairly in the run-up to the election, as well as ways to reduce fraud and support the winner who emerges, the official said.
Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the US applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out.
The election chapter opened a rift between the US and Karzai, who suspected that the Obama administration wanted to replace him.
The Obama administration has mostly repaired its relationship with Karzai, but mistrust remains on both sides.
The US official said Obama and Karzai also plan a lengthy discussion of prospects for a political settlement or peace pact between Karzai's government and the Taliban-led insurgency. The Taliban pulled out of US-led talks in March, but separate talks among Afghan and other contacts continue.
Afghanistan was expected to dominate the two-day NATO summit, which caps an extraordinary weekend of international summitry. On Saturday, leaders of the world's leading industrial nations in the Group of Eight wrapped up two days of talks, mostly about the European economic crisis, in the Camp David presidential retreat.
The NATO summit, in the US President Barack Obama's home city of Chicago, comes as public opinion in Europe and the United States is solidly against the Afghanistan war, with a majority of Americans now saying it is unwinnable or not worth continuing.
It also comes as newly elected French President Francois Hollande has said he will withdraw all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end - a full two years before the timeline agreed to by nations in the US-led NATO coalition.
But NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance remains committed to Afghanistan.
"There will be no rush for the exits," he said. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remains unchanged."
World leaders were looking at Afghanistan's post-conflict future - from funding for security forces to upcoming elections.
Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were due to meet on the sidelines of the summit yesterday with their hour-long discussion expected to focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban, a senior Obama administration official said.
Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, paving the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.
Obama and Karzai will discuss ways to ensure that political rivals can compete fairly in the run-up to the election, as well as ways to reduce fraud and support the winner who emerges, the official said.
Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the US applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out.
The election chapter opened a rift between the US and Karzai, who suspected that the Obama administration wanted to replace him.
The Obama administration has mostly repaired its relationship with Karzai, but mistrust remains on both sides.
The US official said Obama and Karzai also plan a lengthy discussion of prospects for a political settlement or peace pact between Karzai's government and the Taliban-led insurgency. The Taliban pulled out of US-led talks in March, but separate talks among Afghan and other contacts continue.
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