Nato ministers consider Afghanistan pull-out plan

Posted on Friday, April 23, 2010

Conditions must be right before any pull-out, says Nato chief

Nato foreign ministers are expected to consider criteria for deciding how and when to hand over responsibility for Afghanistan to the government there.

The foreign ministers, and their partners in the international coalition in Afghanistan, are meeting in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

The Nato-led force has some 90,000 troops from 40 nations in Afghanistan.

At the heart of the alliance's strategy is creating the conditions to hand it over fully to the Afghan government.

Now, the ministers are ready to endorse the framework - the security, governance and development criteria - for how to manage the process of transition, the BBC's defence and security correspondent Nick Childs reports.

'As long as it takes'

The criteria should, according to Nato sources, help form the basis for assessing the performance of the Afghan security forces and the ability of the government to maintain the rule of law.

But just what the timetable will be is another matter, our correspondent says.

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen insists the process will be based on conditions in the country and not on the calendar.

Mrs Clinton is expected to ask for more military and police trainers

"We all want to see a stable and secure Afghanistan - an Afghanistan that is no longer a threat to its region and to the rest of the world," he said in a speech before the two-day meeting in Tallinn began.

"We will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to achieve that goal. We want to continue to empower the Afghans. And gradually hand over to them greater responsibility for the security of their own country when conditions permit."

Mr Rasmussen also said earlier this week that 450 military and police trainers are still needed to help build up the Afghan security forces.

Aides to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton say she intends to appeal to alliance members to help provide the required trainers.