Gates, Clinton, Karzai Announce New US Policy in Afghanistan: Legitimate Role and Payment for Taliban, Assistance to Farmers

Gates, Clinton, Karzai Announce New US Policy in Afghanistan:

Legitimate Role and Payment for Taliban, Assistance to Farmers

U.S. unveils nonmilitary strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2010, (Xinhua) --

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday unveiled a long-term civilian strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan aimed at bringing stability to the region, placing more emphasis on "realistic progress" over grandiose slogans such as "nation-building."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (R) and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband attend a joint press conference after their meeting in Washington D.C., capital of the United States, Jan. 21, 2010. (Xinhua/Zhang Jun)

Clinton said that U.S. civilian engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan will "endure long after our combat troops come home," and the United States is committed to building lasting partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The strategy calls for a drastic increase of civilian experts sent to Afghanistan's central government ministries and provinces. It also brings to the table some new ways to counter the drug trade that has become a major income source for many Afghan farmers, such as developing agriculture and disrupting drug trade networks.

According to the strategy, the U.S. government is also to support Afghan government in its effort to re-integrate Taliban members who renounce al-Qaida and cease violence.

The strategy's suggestions for Pakistan concerns mainly with committing more aid to that countries, both in development assistance and in counterinsurgency support.

Stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan is at the top of President Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda. However, both countries are faced with daunting challenges in security front as well as social front.

"We have no illusions about the challenges ahead of us," Clinton said, noting achieving progress requires not only military efforts, but also efforts of U.S. government civilians serving in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Clinton met with British Foreign Minister David Miliband earlier in the day. The two discussed a major conference on Afghanistan next week in London, which aims to upgrade the "civilian side of the mission."

Editor: Li Xianzhi

Gates Says Taliban Must Take Legitimate Afghan Role

NY Times, By Elisabeth Bumiller , Published: January 22, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —

The United States recognizes that the Taliban (fighters) are now part of the political fabric of Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here on Friday, but the group must be prepared to play a legitimate role before it can reconcile with the Afghan government.

That means, Mr. Gates said, that the Taliban must participate in elections, not oppose education and not assassinate local officials.

“The question is whether the Taliban at some point in this process is ready to help build a 21st-century Afghanistan or whether they still just want to kill people,” Mr. Gates said.

The defense secretary made his remarks in an interview with Pakistani journalists at the home of the American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson. Mr. Gates was on the second day of a two-day visit to the country.

American officials have given qualified support to a proposed Afghan initiative to give jobs, security and social benefits to Taliban followers who defect. Mr. Gates has said there could be a surge of such followers willing to be integrated into Afghan society, but he has voiced skepticism about whether the Taliban leadership is ready to work peacefully with the Afghan government.

“The question is, what do the Taliban want to make out of Afghanistan?” Mr. Gates told the journalists. “When they tried before, we saw want they wanted to make, and it was a desert, culturally and in every other way.”

Later on Friday, Mr. Gates told a group of senior Pakistani military officers that the Pakistani Army had to reshape and adapt itself to fighting insurgencies, much as he said the American military has after nearly a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Gates implicitly said that the real threat to Pakistan was the collection of militant groups on the border with Afghanistan and not its archrival in the region, India.

“Fighting along the Afghan border and in the tribal areas has required dramatically different skill sets and equipment than preparing for a potential conventional conflict with another country’s army,” Mr. Gates said in remarks at Pakistan’s National Defense University, the country’s main scholarly institution for the military.

In a question-and-answer session afterward, which was closed to the news media, one officer made the argument to Mr. Gates that Pakistan’s problems with militants on its border were the fault of the United States, according to the Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell. In the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan, the American military has driven Islamic extremists across the border into Pakistan and as a result, according to Mr. Morrell, the tone of the officer’s question to Mr. Gates, was, “Hey, we’re in this mess because of you.”

Mr. Gates “took great exception,” Mr. Morrell said, and responded that the situation in Afghanistan was unsustainable after the withdrawal of the Russians from the country in 1989 and that Al-Qaeda's goal is to destabilize the democratic institutions in the entire region. “The notion that you could somehow be immune from them or not a target of this grand plan of theirs is just not realistic,” Mr. Morrell quoted Mr. Gates as saying.

In his formal remarks, Mr. Gates acknowledged the current “trust deficit” between Pakistan and the United States and said it had tainted Pakistan’s perception of the United States.

“So let me say, definitively,” Mr. Gates said, “that the United States does not covet a single inch of Pakistani soil, we seek no military bases here and we have no desire to control Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

Karzai wants to pay Taliban to lay down their arms

by Waheedullah Massoud –

Friday, January 22, 2010

KABUL (AFP) –

(NATO-Backed) Afghan President Hamid Karzai unveiled an ambitious Western-funded plan Friday to offer money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms in an effort to quell a crippling insurgency.

His comments to the BBC came as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described the Taliban as part of Afghanistan's "political fabric", but said any future role would depend on (Taliban fighters') laying down their weapons.

Karzai's plan echoed similar proposals by Washington to try and bring low and mid-level extremists back into mainstream society, but the leadership of Islamist insurgent groups remain hostile to negotiations.

Fighters led by the Taliban movement have been waging an increasingly deadly (resistance) against the Afghan government and foreign troops since a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime from power in late 2001.

"We know as the Afghan people we must have peace at any cost," Karzai said in the television interview aired Friday ahead of an international conference on Afghanistan in London next week, where he will present the plan.

"Those that we approach to return will be provided with the abilities to work, to find jobs, to have protection, to resettle in their own communities."

The Taliban gives its foot-soldiers higher salaries than the Afghan government can afford to pay its forces, and the president said his project would have international backing to provide the necessary funds.

Hardline Taliban supporters, who were members of Al-Qaeda or other terror groups, would not be accepted in the scheme, Karzai added. Related article: Taliban part of 'political fabric' in Afghanistan: Gates

The Taliban leadership have repeatedly rebuffed peace talks in the past, and on Friday a spokesman for the militia, Zabihullah Mujahid, reiterated that they would not negotiate with Karzai's government.

"Our only and main goal is the freedom and independence of our country. We cannot be bought by money and bounties. The Taliban will not sell themselves off for cash," Mujahid said, reacting to Karzai's comments.

"We insist on our previous stance that we will not negotiate with this government. Any negotiation now would mean accepting being a slave of America. Our goal is enforcing an Islamic government and withdrawal of foreign forces."

Insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who commands another radical Islamist group Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan, would come to the table with the US and Afghan government, but only under strict conditions, his spokesman Zubair Sediqi said.

"All the foreign forces must leave Afghanistan unconditionally. A permanent ceasefire must be enforced. All prisoners from all side must be freed. An interim administration must take charge for one year," Sediqi told AFP.

Karzai has in the past urged the United States to back talks with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar but Washington has resisted negotiations with any figures linked to wider extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda.

On a visit to Pakistan -- which has come under intense US pressure to do more to wipe out Islamist extremists along its border with Afghanistan -- Gates said the Taliban had to prove they wanted a role in Afghanistan's future.

"The question is whether they are prepared to play a legitimate role in the political fabric of Afghanistan going forward, meaning participating in elections, meaning not assassinating local officials and killing families," he told reporters.

Gates had said earlier that some lower-ranking insurgents might be open to making peace with Kabul, but warned that the senior-most Taliban leaders would unlikely reconcile with Afghanistan's government.

In Washington on Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a long-term non-military strategy to stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The strategy aims to to rebuild the Afghan farming sector, improve governance and bring extremists back into mainstream society.

It complements a military strategy in which President Barack Obama announced on December 1 he would deploy another 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan.

Extra troop commitments from NATO allies are expected to take to around 150,000 the total number of foreign troops operating in Afghanistan under US and NATO command in the coming year.

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