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NATO sees no alternative to Afghan operations

15 November 2010 22:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The head of NATO said on Monday there was no alternative to pursuing military operations in Afghanistan if the aim was to press the Taliban into talks with the Kabul government, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
Speaking a day after the Washington Post quoted Afghan President Hamid Karzai as saying he wanted the U.S. military to reduce the visibility and intensity of its operations in Afghanistan, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he did not agree with everything the Afghan leader had said.
But the NATO secretary-general said the alliance’s policy, to be endorsed by its leaders at a summit in Lisbon on November 19-20, was for Afghanistan’s security forces to take over more responsibility for military operations from foreign troops.
"In fact the thrust of (Karzai’s) comments go exactly in the direction we wish to move as well," he told a news conference.
"Of course I can’t say I agree with everything President Karzai has stated on all issues but we also have to accept that he is the elected president of the country and of course he can express his views as he wishes," Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen said he saw no alternative to continuing military operations to force the Taliban toward a political solution.
"I consider it of utmost importance to continue our military operations because the fact is it is the increasing military pressure on the Taliban and the Taliban leadership that has stimulated the reconciliation talks," he said.
Monday’s Washington Post quoted the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, as warning Afghan officials that Karzai’s latest public criticism of U.S. strategy seriously undermined the war effort.
The paper, citing Afghan and U.S. officials, said Petraeus had expressed "astonishment and disappointment" at Karzai’s call, in which the Afghan leader said night raids by U.S. forces were inciting Afghans to join the insurgency.
In Lisbon, NATO leaders will back a strategy of starting to hand security responsibility to Afghan forces next year with the aim of their taking the lead countrywide by the end of 2014.
NATO countries, facing hostile domestic opinion and budget cuts, are looking keenly for the exit in Afghanistan and NATO officials say the strategy should allow for a gradual reduction of foreign troops from a current peak of about 150,000 soldiers.
However, the plan hinges on a struggling effort to build up Afghan forces to a level at which they are capable of containing the widening insurgency and the Kabul government is widely seen as too corrupt, unstable and inept to stand alone.