November 25, 2002
The UN Security Council has decided to extend the mandate of the 22-nation security force in Afghanistan's capital a month early so Germany and the Netherlands can get parliamentary approval to take over its command, Britain's UN ambassador said.
The council is expected to vote Monday to authorize the 4,800-strong International Security Assistance Force for a year beyond Dec. 20, when its current mandate expires, Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said. Despite calls from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to expand the force beyond Kabul to provide security while an Afghan police force and national army are trained, there have been no offers of additional troops.
The United States said last week it plans to send more military civil affairs experts to the country to help improve security and beef up their operation early next year with the first U.S.-trained Afghan army soldiers. The lack of security remains a concern a year after the United States launched its war that toppled Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and dispersed the al-Qaida terrorists they harbored. It is hampering efforts to rebuild the country and provide Afghanistan's 26 million people with a peace dividend after two decades of war.
Turkish Maj. Gen. Hilmi Akin Zorlu, the current commander of the international force, said Friday he did not expect the force to expand beyond Kabul soon because the international community could not agree on the need for such a broadening of the mission. He said in Washington that he expected the peacekeeping force to remain in Afghanistan two to three more years to complete training and deployment of a new army.
The draft Security Council resolution welcomes the transitional government's efforts "to establish fully representative, professional and multiethnic army and police forces." But it declares that "the situation in Afghanistan still constitutes a threat to international peace and security" and supports "international efforts to root out terrorism" and an extension of the international force.
Britain's Mr. Greenstock said Friday that the mandate was being extended ahead of schedule because the Germans and the Dutch must get the sanction of their parliaments after the UN decision rather than before it. "Germany is very strict on their parliamentary procedures being based on a UN decision, so we're doing it for them, basically," he said.
"It's to help them get in place before they take over from Turkey," Mr. Greenstock said. Germany has 1,200 soldiers in the force, and the Dutch 240, but those figures will be boosted after the transfer of command, expected around mid-February.
Forces from the two European countries already work together in a joint battalion patrolling Kabul and share an army corps headquarters in Muenster, Germany.
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