AFGHAN PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton yesterday said that Taliban fighters willing to reject al-Qaeda should be brought in from the cold. They also called on delegates attending an international conference on Afghanistan to help strengthen the country’s security forces.
More than 80 of Afghanistan’s neighbouring states and donors attended the one-day conference in The Hague to discuss efforts to bring greater stability to the country. Mrs Clinton argued that most Taliban fighters had joined the insurgency “out of desperation” because of poverty, rather than ideological commitment. “They should be offered an honourable form of reconciliation and reintegration into a peaceful society if they are willing to abandon violence, break with al-Qaeda, and support the constitution,” she added.
Mr Karzai said success against the insurgents depends on “a strategy that is shared, comprehensive and workable”. He welcomed President Barack Obama’s announcement last week that the US would commit more troops.
The “build-up of Afghanistan’s security capacity is the surest and least costly way” to overcome militancy, Mr Karzai added. He also promised a free and fair ballot when he stands for re-election in August.
Yesterday at the conference Iran offered help in combating Afghanistan’s drugs trade, in a gesture to a US call for regional support that Mrs Clinton described as promising. Iranian deputy foreign minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh said Tehran was ready to help both in fighting the country’s huge opium trade and in its reconstruction.
Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power, who represented Ireland at the conference, told delegates that the Government is fully committed to continuing to play its part in the development of Afghanistan. Ireland has committed more than €18 million in reconstruction, development and humanitarian assistance, and most of this sum has already been disbursed.
Mr Power also told delegates that seven Defence Forces personnel assigned to Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan are involved in training their Afghan counterparts. A small number of Irish personnel are also working with the EU’s policing mission (Eupol) in Afghanistan, and Mr Power told the conference that this number is expected to increase.
Among the key priorities for Afghanistan, Mr Power said, was the need to convince Afghans that “we are not, and never want to be, an occupying power in their land; that we want only to assist them to achieve stability, security and development in their country”.
The Minister also stressed the importance of isolating and defeating al-Qaeda and its associates in the region through a combination of “reconciling amenable Taliban members, and a military offensive against the irreconcilable hard-core”.
The Afghan security forces should be equipped to take the lead in protecting their own national security, Mr Power said, and the promotion of good governance and accountability was crucial.