Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Financial Times
February 19, 2008 By Hugh Williamson, in Berlin
Angela Merkel on Monday said she was “worried” about the attitude of some Nato allies to Afghanistan, and criticised the government in Kabul for failing to spell out exactly what it expects of the international community.
In her most outspoken comments on Afghanistan since Germany came under pressure this month to send more troops, the German chancellor said she had “absolutely no time” for proposals to redeploy Nato troops within Afghanistan.
The US and other governments have called on Germany to send more troops to the war-torn regions in southern Afghanistan. The chancellor rejected this, but appeared to leave open the option to dispatch more troops in the autumn, when the parliamentary mandate for Berlin’s deployment expires.
Without naming specific countries, Ms Merkel told a meeting with foreign correspondents in Berlin that she was “worried about the current debate in Nato. We decided only a few years ago on a division of labour among Nato partners,” she said, referring to the role of Germany’s 3,300 troops in the relatively peaceful north and the responsibilities of other countries elsewhere.
Now was not the time to change this division of tasks. Rather, “continuity and stability” were needed to give the Afghan people a sense of security. She attacked suggestions that Germany had taken the easy option: “We’re not just digging wells and building houses; we also have a military mission.”
Her comments came ahead of a meeting on Tuesday in Berlin at which leaders of the ruling coalition were set to agree a proposal to increase to 18 months – from 12 months at present – the length of the next Afghanistan mandate, starting in the autumn. Ms Merkel said the size of the deployment would remain unchanged “until the autumn”. She refused to comment on whether extra troops would be sent to the south after that, as requested by Washington.
She said “one of the biggest weaknesses” in reconstruction was Kabul’s reluctance to specify its expectations of the international community. Referring to the international training of the Afghan police force, in which Germany had assumed a leading role, she said: “Afghanistan must say more clearly what it wants.”
*A suicide car bomber targeting a Canadian military convoy detonated his explosives at a market in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 37 civilians. At least 30 people were wounded in the attack in Spin Boldak, in Kandahar province near the border with Pakistan.
February 19, 2008 By Hugh Williamson, in Berlin
Angela Merkel on Monday said she was “worried” about the attitude of some Nato allies to Afghanistan, and criticised the government in Kabul for failing to spell out exactly what it expects of the international community.
In her most outspoken comments on Afghanistan since Germany came under pressure this month to send more troops, the German chancellor said she had “absolutely no time” for proposals to redeploy Nato troops within Afghanistan.
The US and other governments have called on Germany to send more troops to the war-torn regions in southern Afghanistan. The chancellor rejected this, but appeared to leave open the option to dispatch more troops in the autumn, when the parliamentary mandate for Berlin’s deployment expires.
Without naming specific countries, Ms Merkel told a meeting with foreign correspondents in Berlin that she was “worried about the current debate in Nato. We decided only a few years ago on a division of labour among Nato partners,” she said, referring to the role of Germany’s 3,300 troops in the relatively peaceful north and the responsibilities of other countries elsewhere.
Now was not the time to change this division of tasks. Rather, “continuity and stability” were needed to give the Afghan people a sense of security. She attacked suggestions that Germany had taken the easy option: “We’re not just digging wells and building houses; we also have a military mission.”
Her comments came ahead of a meeting on Tuesday in Berlin at which leaders of the ruling coalition were set to agree a proposal to increase to 18 months – from 12 months at present – the length of the next Afghanistan mandate, starting in the autumn. Ms Merkel said the size of the deployment would remain unchanged “until the autumn”. She refused to comment on whether extra troops would be sent to the south after that, as requested by Washington.
She said “one of the biggest weaknesses” in reconstruction was Kabul’s reluctance to specify its expectations of the international community. Referring to the international training of the Afghan police force, in which Germany had assumed a leading role, she said: “Afghanistan must say more clearly what it wants.”
*A suicide car bomber targeting a Canadian military convoy detonated his explosives at a market in southern Afghanistan on Monday, killing 37 civilians. At least 30 people were wounded in the attack in Spin Boldak, in Kandahar province near the border with Pakistan.