By Nigel Chamberlain, NATO Watch
The recent NATO delegation to Afghanistan, led by Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was said to have “demonstrated the full commitment of NATO and partner nations to Afghanistan now and beyond 2014, and was an opportunity to see the progress being made in the mission, as plans to hand over full security responsibility from ISAF forces to their Afghan counterparts are on course”.
The Secretary General said that NATO and ISAF partners are committed to seeing their combat mission through to the end of 2014 and they will work with the Afghan government to establish a training, advising and assistance mission after 2014. Speaking directly to the Afghan people, he said: “I can assure you: you have the strong and long-term support of the whole international community”.
NATO’s mission clearly does not have the full support of the whole international community. President Putin's special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told Reuters that Russia wanted "full clarity" on the combat capabilities of the post-2014 mission and reiterated a threat to withdraw cooperation unless the alliance receives approval from the UN Security Council. He added:
Our current cooperation with NATO is based on the current NATO mandate from the UN Security Council. And we will only cooperate with such missions as have a mandate for which we have also voted. … At the end of the day NATO is a military bloc. If a military-political group appears in the neighbourhood of Russian territory, without our consent and with tasks unknown to us, this is problematic. A mandate is indispensable.
A NATO official said a UN resolution would be helpful but stopped short of saying it was essential. Russia is concerned that the proposed ‘training mission’ will be supported by Special Forces, combat ready to support Afghan troops, if necessary.
Kabulov said Moscow was prepared to supply Kabul with arms, including air-defence systems. Russia has already agreed that NATO can withdraw its forces via the city of Ulyanovsk which has the necessary airport and rail infrastructure for onward transport to seaports on the Baltic. He added:
We are ready to cooperate with NATO on Afghanistan not because we like NATO, not at all, but because it corresponds with our own interests. This is a very pragmatic approach, nothing personal.
President Putin has this week appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko as Russia's new envoy to NATO, the first career diplomat to hold the post. He is considered an extremely experienced professional who is highly respected in the diplomatic community. Grushko has worked in the Foreign Ministry since 1977 and served as Deputy Foreign Minister since 2005. He headed Russia's delegation on military security and arms control in Vienna from 1996 to 2000.
Elsewhere, the UK House of Commons International Development Committee produced a report this week, Afghanistan: Development progress and prospects after 2014, which suggests that it may not be possible to create a viable Afghan state. The Committee proposes that the UK should reconsider its ambition of building Afghan government institutions in favour of more traditional aid targets. While recognising that much has been achieved, the British MPs warn that "massive challenges" remain and conclude:
Based on the assessment of the likely economic impact of military withdrawal, the UK Government should be prepared to do whatever it can to address this potential shortfall in spending including urging other governments to increase their aid commitments to Afghanistan to fill the economic gap.