Karzai gets approval for key plans at Afghan conference

KABUL - The international community at a conference on Afghanistan here Tuesday gave more control over aid money to the Afghan government, but also approved a plan to hand over security responsibility to national forces by 2014.

The one-day conference, attended by around 70 international representatives, including 57 countries and 11 regional and international organisations, also tasked Kabul with political and economic reforms and improving governance, including the fight against endemic administrative corruption within specific timelines.

“Participants affirmed support for the Afghan government’s leadership in exercising its sovereign authority,” read the final declaration, which was drafted after six hours of deliberation by the delegates, including nearly 40 foreign ministers.

President Hamid Karzai opened the conference by saying that Afghan forces would “be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014.”

“This is a commitment that we have made to the Afghan people and to our international partners,” Karzai told reporters after the conference. “This is a national objective that we have to fulfil and we must.”

Afghan army and police forces are expected to grow by more than 300,000 personnel by October 2011. But with the insurgency at its worst level and no further plan for the growth of indigenous forces observers deem 2014 too ambitious a goal.

There are around 140,000 US and NATO troops currently stationed in the country, but that number is expected to grow by 150,000 in the coming weeks.

Speaking at the conference, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that international forces would remain to support Afghan forces even after the latter take over responsibility for the country’s security.

Rasmussen said that the transition would be gradual and “on the basis of a sober assessment of the political and security situation, so that it is irreversible.”

“And when it happens, international forces won’t leave - they will simply move into a supporting role,” he said, adding, “We have not come this far, at this cost, to falter just as we see our common goal take shape.”

In order to lessen the job of security forces on the battleground, Karzai also got the international community’s approval for his peace plan, which is aimed at persuading up to 36,000 insurgents to lay down their arms by 2015.

The president said that the peace plan would target those “who will be willing to accept our constitution and renounce ties to Al Qaeda’s network of terror.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said her country would support the initiative, but insisted that it would “depend on whether insurgents wish to be reintegrated and reconciled by renouncing violence and Al Qaeda.”

Afghan Minister of Finance Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal said the participants had agreed to channel 50 per cent of nearly 13 billion dollars pledged through the government over the next two years.

Karzai emphasized that despite some achievements in the past nine years, delivering development aid though hundreds of isolated projects failed “to generate the desired results, achieve public visibility or support the establishment of good governance.”

“It is time to concentrate our efforts on the limited number of national programmes and projects to transform the lives of our people, reinforce the social compact between state and citizens,” the president said.

The Kabul conference, the ninth so far on Afghanistan and the first inside the country, has been touted as a chance for both the Afghan government and its international allies to show results to their public after significant loss of life and billions of dollars spent since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Foreign ministers, mainly from troop-contributing countries took turn at Tuesday’s conference to give supportive statements and highlight past achievements.

“What we have achieved is of tremendous importance,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who co-chaired the conference with Karzai, told reporters after the conference.

“Never before have we had a more concrete vision of Afghanistan’s future,” Ban said.

Despite its promised intentions, the Taliban failed to disrupt the event.

The militants fired rockets at Kabul airport Monday night, forcing Ban and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt to land at the US-operated Bagram military base. They were flown by helicopter to Kabul.

Afghan and NATO troops also Monday night killed and detained several insurgents, who were in the “final stages of preparation for attacks against the Kabul Conference,” the military said.

Central Kabul was under a complete lockdown Tuesday as Afghan security forces backed by NATO troops threw a security cordon around the capital city. In a bid to provide better security the government declared Monday and Tuesday public holidays in Kabul.