CHANCELLOR ANGELA Merkel has offered an additional 500 German troops for Afghanistan ahead of tomorrow’s London conference, and has backed exploratory talks with the Taliban for a negotiated end to the war.
The Berlin government agreed a plan yesterday that would nearly double civilian aid in addition to a €50 million contribution to a €350 million fund to “reintegrate” Afghan insurgents who turn away from the Taliban.
Under competing pressures from Nato partners and German voters, the new plan would add 500 soldiers to Germany’s 4,500- strong Afghan mission – with the option of a further 350 soldiers.
In return, Berlin would pull back troops from offensive missions and increase fivefold to 1,400 the number of soldiers training Afghan police officers and soldiers.
“With this, we are supporting President Karzai in his aim to have Afghanistan in a situation where it can guarantee its own security by 2014,” Dr Merkel said. This afternoon she hopes to drum up support for the plan from opposition parties in a speech to parliament, which has the last word on all German military deployments.
While she has declined to name an end date for a final pull-out of German troops, her foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has suggested that a four-year withdrawal process could begin later this year.
Berlin’s plan has received mixed reviews from German analysts, who describe it as a pragmatic balancing act between Nato ally expectations and sceptical voters.
They have watched in growing anger as what was sold to them in 2001 as a civil reconstruction mission turn into a bloody running battle between German soldiers and Taliban insurgents.
Mindful of the public mood, Berlin was at pains yesterday to justify its backing for the proposed “reintegration and reconciliation” programme. “This isn’t about writing a blank cheque to buy off terrorists with hardline ideology, but people who followed the Taliban for economic reasons,” said Mr Westerwelle. “This is an economic chance for people to turn away from violence, for their families and their villages. It’s money well spent.” In an era of budget cuts and ballooning debts, German officials made clear that its financial assistance depended on the Afghan government making good on its promises to fight corruption and boost economic and social development.
“We started doing this before but made the mistake of not making it sustainable,” said one senior official. “We’ve learned from that mistake and this time have seen the Afghan government come to the same conclusion, that this is a priority for them, too.”
German politicians brushed off the suggestion yesterday that with its new strategy – delayed for months by last year’s general election – Berlin continues to leave the dirty work in Afghanistan to its American and British Nato allies.
Defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg suggested yesterday that it was Berlin’s allies who had “rethought their own position on targeted offensives”. A senior government source said Berlin’s plan “isn’t a strategy shift” but the international community was in a “very agreeable situation where it now has a unified strategy”.