Please hurry, Afghan president tells NATO
Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed today for NATO to speed up a planned expansion of its peacekeeping force in his country to protect against terrorists and narcotics gangs before September’s key elections.
“Please hurry,” Karzai urged a NATO summit.
“Come sooner than September and provide the Afghan men and women with a chance to vote freely without fear, without coercion,” he said.
The alliance yesterday decided to expand its peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan from 6,500 to 10,000 over the election period, although officials clarified today that about 1,300 of those troops will be held in reserve outside the country for emergency use.
The expanded NATO forces should allow the separate, 20,000-strong US-led force to intensify its focus on pursuing insurgents from the old Taliban regime and its al-Qaida allies in the troubled south and east, but it has been criticised as insufficient.
Karzai thanked the 26 NATO leaders for expanding the force, then made a forceful plea for an accelerated deployment, reminding the summit of recent deadly attacks on officials carrying out voter registration and on registered voters.
“The Afghan people have trust in the security that you are going to provide for us, but the Afghan people need that security today and not tomorrow,” he said.
Karzai has long appealed for NATO to expand its “security assistance” force, which has been restricted to the capital Kabul.
But although the alliance agreed in October to expand the force, it has been unable to persuade governments to provided the necessary troops, apart from a small German force based in the northern city of Kunduz.
