Posted on 02/08/2003 3:23:37 PM PST by prairiebreeze
MUNICH, Germany - Germany proposed Saturday that NATO (news - web sites) take over command — currently shared by individual countries — of the international peacekeeping force around the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Defense Minister Peter Struck said he would make the suggestion to Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he visits Kabul on Monday. Germany and the Netherlands are due to take over command from Turkey on Monday until October.
"I will ask President Karzai on Monday if he has any objections to the NATO flag flying in Kabul, and I cannot imagine that he has," Struck said at an international conference on security policy.
Struck said the continued social and ethnic tensions in the country and the threat posed by the remnants of the ousted Taliban regime showed the need for a strong international force to remain in Kabul.
"Only a limited number of countries are capable of taking over ... it makes sense to determine formally that the responsibility be shouldered jointly," Struck said.
NATO is providing planning and logistics support to the Germans and Dutch as they prepare to take control of the mission. The 19 nation allies also have been informally discussing the possibility of it taking a bigger role.
Such a mission would be first major operation outside its traditional European and North American theater.
Struck's proposal comes as the alliance is divided over Iraq with Germany, France and Belgium holding up plans for NATO to prepare to protect Turkey from the threat of Iraqi counterattack.
His comments seemed to find support from NATO's Secretary General Lord Robertson who told the same conference the six-monthly rotation of leading nations in the Kabul force was hindering efforts to stabilize the country.
"The unseemly scramble to find a country to command (the force) in Kabul gives neither the Afghans, their neighbors nor the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida the sense we are there for the long haul," Robertson said. "NATO can play a bigger part."
However French officials urged caution, saying that the issue would have to be studied deeply before any decision was made. Ahead of Struck's proposal, Spain and Canada had both suggested they might be willing to take over the mission.
The current commander of the International Security Assistance Force, Turkish Maj. Gen. Hilmi Akin Zorlu, said Thursday the peacekeepers must remain for another two or three years while the Afghan army and police are fully established.
About 4,000 international troops are participating in the force, which was established to protect the fragile new Afghan government after U.S.-backed forces toppled the Taliban regime in 2001.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
What the hell could we trust 'em with?
The French!
Yeah, like the one where they systematically try to exterminate a race of people from the face of the Earth, and 2 generations later they are saying all wars are bad.
So the Germans can't or won't handle the responsibility of taking a turm protecting Kabul and they're basically crying to be rescued.
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