The Prime Minister and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held a joint press conference on Afghanistan during CHOGM on 28 November 2009.
Read the transcript
Prime Minister
Can I say first of all, I’m very pleased to be here this morning with my very good friend the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon. Our talks this morning have focused on Afghanistan. We have focused on what we can do to match the military push that is going to take place in Afghanistan with the political push forward, and I want to announce our plans in the context of the conference that we are calling in London on January 28th, at which President Karzai will be present, which the Secretary General has agreed to attend, and for which we will be issuing invitations to all the major ISAF countries, Afghanistan’s neighbours, regional powers and key international institutions.
The purpose of the conference, which I will open and the Foreign Secretary will chair, is to drive forward our campaign in Afghanistan, to match the increase in military forces with an increased political momentum, to focus the international community on a clear set of priorities across the 43-nation coalition and marshal the maximum international effort to help the Afghan government deliver.
I believe that we will be able to set a clear timetable for 2010 and beyond. Within three months, our benchmark is that the Afghan government should have identified additional troops to send to Helmand province for training. This is part of our idea that we will build up the Afghan army by nearly 50,000 over the course of the next year. But in six months we will want a clear plan for police training, and that means that the corruption that has been identified in the police has been dealt with and we have police trainers to have a police force that works with the local community rather than sometimes against it.
Within nine months, President Karzai should have completed the process of appointing almost 400 provincial and district governors who can lead the provision of services in these areas. Within 12 months, 5,000 additional Afghan troops will be trained by us in Helmand and thousands more, of course, in other parts of the country, and during 2010 we must start the transition to an Afghan security lead in a number of districts and provinces, and I want the conference in London to set the conditions needed for district by district handover to Afghan lead responsibility. I believe that this can begin next year in 2010 in a number of districts including, I believe, one or two in Helmand province itself. I think we need to transfer at least five Afghan provinces to lead Afghan control by the end of 2010.
The conference, therefore, will cover both our military and our political strategies, but concentrate on the political strategy for Afghanistan. We will need further troop and training commitments from partners. President Obama will make his announcement on 1st December. I will make our announcement next week. Other partners may need more time, but, as I have said, I expect to see 5,000 further troops committed by other nations and the London conference will be also an opportunity for some to make new commitments. We are committed also to peace and to reintegration. There is an ideological-driven hardcore of the Taleban, but by combining military pressure with incentives for people to reject the violence and the violent process, we believe we can squeeze the insurgency. We need a new relationship between Afghanistan and its neighbours. We must leave behind the mistrust of the past. The fighters in Afghanistan draw on funding, support and shelter from beyond the borders and we must bring the nations around Afghanistan together in a common strategy. All this must be supported by reinforced civilian leadership, reinforcing civilian structures in Afghanistan, so we are looking to boost police training and the staff that support the efforts at local levels in a civilian capacity in Afghanistan.
So we see the London conference as setting a path for Afghan and international efforts for the future, one that will bring together military and political strategies in a coordinated way and one, of course, which is based on the proposition why we are in Afghanistan in the first place: that Britain and the world needs protection from the terrorism that starts in the Afghan-Pakistan area, which is the epicentre of modern global terrorism and has got to be dealt with.
Thank you very much, Secretary General.
Question
You mentioned the ideological hardcore of the Taleban in Afghanistan who presumably you wouldn’t consider trying to include in this process or to bring in, but is there a sense in which, at this conference, either the one in London or in Kabul, either of you would like to see representatives of the Taleban, ex-Taleban, included in this process?
Prime Minister
No, that’s not possible. We’ve got to be absolutely clear that our strategy is to build up the Afghan institutions themselves, the Afghan army, the Afghan police, the Afghan civil society, the Afghan local institutions, Afghan government at a provincial and district level, and our idea is to strengthen the local and national institutions of the Afghanistan people and to weaken the Taleban. Now, if there are people who wish to renounce the Taleban and renounce the violence and join the democratic process and, if you like, resist and condemn the insurgency, then of course President Karzai has said that he would welcome them back into the democratic process, but the whole purpose of the London conference is to strengthen the civil society, the military and the policing efforts of the Afghan people themselves and to provide resources, but also the momentum, by which President Karzai himself, himself, will announce that he has milestones and he has benchmarks that he will meet over the next year.
Secretary General
I would support what Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just said on the basic objective of a conference. It will have two overarching objectives, this conference. The first one will be to have strong contact between President Karzai and his government, and his people; secondly, establishing a stronger partnership between the Afghan and the international community as a whole. We will have very important agendas such as the stability of their country with a leading role focusing more on Afghanistan’s leading role with the international community’s support.
Also, the United Nations will coordinate with the international community to provide the necessary social and economic development pillars. We expect that President Karzai will reach out to ethnic groups and other political leaders to promote national reconciliation and unity of the government. We also expect that we will try to help the Afghan government so that they can build their institutional capacity. We also expect that President Karzai will ensure good governance including eradication of corruptive practices of their country. It would be extremely important through this international community that Afghanistan can have improved and much strengthened partnerships with neighbouring countries like Pakistan, India, Iran and Turkey. We will try to help facilitate their efforts.
Prime Minister
All the evidence is that the Taleban has limited support within Afghanistan. The strengthening of the Afghan people to resist the Taleban is through building up a successful military, a corruption free police, and district and provincial government that is successful. That is the main element of what is called the Afghanisation Strategy.
Question
Prime Minister, you have set a timetable of five Afghan provinces handed over to lead Afghan control during 2010. Does that imply a corresponding withdrawal, bringing home British troops, or will they simply be redeployed? Secondly, you mentioned police corruption. You also mean political corruption. What will happen if the benchmarks are not met?
Prime Minister
The first thing we have seen since President Karzai’s reinauguration as President for the second term is promise of an anti-corruption task force. That will lead to anti corruption laws that have to be passed in Afghanistan. There has been the arrest - as I understand it - of 12 major officials, so a lot of work is being done already to root out some of the corruption that has existed in Afghanistan. However, we are expecting and demanding more. One of the reasons why we want to have police and military training, and the appointment of good district and provincial governments, is precisely to deal at a local and national level with these problems of corruption.
As far as the Afghan forces are concerned, as we build up the Afghan Army from 90,000 to 134,000 perhaps to a higher level, and as we build up the police of around 90,000 to a numerically even stronger but far more effective police force, then there will come a point at which we can transfer more and more districts and provinces to Afghan security control. It is at that point that we would look at what the need was for British troops, if the Afghanistan people were able to be responsible for their own security, but not until then.
Question
I have a question for the Prime Minister and a question for the Secretary General. Prime Minister, are you hopeful that you will be able to go into the British general election in the spring saying you have had an initial surge and now Afghanisation is underway and that, within a year, you should be able to see British troops on the decrease? Secretary General, at the January conference, are you going to be able to give any indication of when Afghanistan might be returning to some semblance of normality, where it will not require international troops in such huge numbers? Is there a date by which you hope you will be seeing Afghan forces taking the strain?
Prime Minister
My duty to the British people, which is to ensure the security of people against terrorism coming to the streets of Britain, is best discharged by making sure that Afghanistan itself is increasingly over time able to run its own affairs, so that it will never again provide space for Al Qaida. At the same time as the Pakistan authorities - and we take on Al Qaida in Pakistan - we have prevented Al Qaida from returning to power in Afghanistan and, therefore, prevented a Taleban government from being in power. I have and will set no timetable about troops and numbers. What I will say is that we are creating milestones and benchmarks by which the process of Afghanisation can be judged. In January, we will look at what progress has been made over these last two months. Then, we will continue to look at how the police training is moving forward. I have said we need a police plan within six months. We also need the appointment of district and provincial governors as soon as possible as well. Over these next few months, I hope we will see this process of Afghanisation happening in a way that people can feel more secure, that side by side with the British troops, the Afghans are taking responsibility for themselves, so we can look forward to a time in the future for which there is no timetable at the moment, when Afghan forces can take responsibility in new areas and British forces are able to come home.
Secretary General
Afghanistan is going through a critically important period at this time. First of all, they need to have political and security stabilisation. For that, they need the international community’s support. In that, I am very grateful and very much appreciate the noble sacrifices and contribution by many countries including the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as other members of the ISAF. Then, this peace and stability in Afghanistan has very important implications, not only for the stability of Afghanistan, but regional peace and security. That is why international community members are making very noble contributions there.
The second point is fighting against terrorism. Again, this is a global issue that requires very collective support from the international community. We really need, at this time, to support Afghan people. I do not have any idea when the appropriate timing will be for the international community to think of reducing their contributions. However, in principle, as I said earlier, all these challenges, if it can be achieved that Afghanistan takes a leading role with the international community supporting, that is a basic principle. At the same time as we support this increase in military, the civilian surge should also run in parallel. That will be very important.
That is what the United Nations will continue to help on, for instance, people in close coordination with the international community. We have been establishing our offices, expanding our presence throughout Afghanistan. This year we opened two more offices and we are considering opening three more. By next year, we will have United Nations offices provincially and sub provincially all throughout Afghanistan.
Question
I have a question for each of you. Prime Minister, you said, ‘I will make our announcement next week.’ Is that on the 500 troops, or is it possible that Britain could send more than 500 extra troops? To the Secretary General, given the circumstances in which President Karzai was elected and the corruption that has tainted his administration, do you think he can ever be a reliable partner for the international community?
Prime Minister
The two questions that people want answers to all the time are: why is Britain in Afghanistan? I will talk about that again in my statement next week. People must know why 43 members of the world community are taking action in Afghanistan, so I will talk about that in my statement next week. The second point that people want to know is: what progress can we make? A few weeks ago, before any other country made any announcements about additional troops - and we are still the only one that has made an announcement that we are prepared to consider additional troops - I said that we are prepared to raise our numbers to 9,500, but three conditions had to be met. The conditions were: fair burden sharing; Afghan forces are made available for us to train, otherwise we would not be seeing Afghan forces on the ground to complete the process of Afghanisation; being satisfied that our troops are properly equipped as we have always wanted them to be in every instance in which they have gone abroad. I will, therefore, make an announcement about whether the conditions are met, and equally why we are in Afghanistan and what progress we believe we can make as a result of the combining of the military push that we are talking about, with a political push.
A military strategy alone would not be sufficient for Afghanistan. It is a political strategy combined with a military strategy and that is why the conference, in only a few weeks time on 28th January in London, is so important. It is about the political strategy that must complement the military strategy. You must have both if we are going to succeed in resisting the terrorist threat that comes from Afghanistan and Pakistan and make sure that a stable Afghanistan can contribute to a stable and safe Britain.
Secretary General
The people of Afghanistan have chosen President Karzai as their leader. It would be in the interests of, not only Afghanistan, but also the international community that we support President Karzai so that he can exercise his leadership and lead this country in a desired direction. That means peace and stability, social and economic development, and also good governance. I have told the President Karzai on many occasions that, while the international community and United Nations will stand behind his leadership, it will be important and the key to earning trust and confidence from the international community would be through him establishing and ensuring good governance and strengthening the institution building of the country. The United Nations and international community will continue to support him. Thank you very much.
Prime Minister
May I thank the Secretary General for being present at the meeting of the Commonwealth. He has contributed to the discussions on climate change and I know we will be spending many days in Copenhagen to bring them to a conclusion. He has also led the world on the Millennium Development Goals, which we have also discussed today. He is also taking an active role in finding a Middle East peace solution. I know he has been working very hard on that. It is always a great privilege to meet the Secretary General and I want to thank him for being with us today.
Secretary General
Thank you.
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