NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Tuesday that with tens of thousands of more troops to arrive in Afghanistan by next year, there would be "new momentum" for the country to turn the tide against the insurgents, DPA reported.
"In 2010 there will be new momentum," Rasmussen, who was in Kabul for a one-day-trip, said at a joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai.
NATO countries pledged earlier this month to send up to 7,000 extra troops to Afghanistan after US President Barack Obama ordered an additional 30,000 US soldiers to join the fight in country.
The new forces come on top of more than 110,000 foreign forces - mostly under the banner of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) - already stationed in Afghanistan.
"The ISAF mission will be much larger. We will focus much more on protecting the population, protecting the roads and protecting the development projects," Rasmussen said. "This mission is now entering a new phase, a phase that will bring more security, and more development to the Afghan people."
Obama has set July 2011 as the starting date for the US military forces' withdrawal from the country, while other NATO countries are expected to discuss their military engagement in Afghanistan in a conference in London next month.
Western leaders have pledged to double the number of Afghan security forces to 400,000 for them to be able to defend their country against Taliban insurgents on their own when the NATO begin to leave.
Setting a timetable for the NATO forces' withdrawal has created concerns among Afghans, who believe that it would embolden the insurgents to continue their insurgency and wait for the international troops to leave before they could take over the country.
But Rasmussen said that NATO would not leave the country "too soon."
"Let there be no doubt that the international community will stand with you, will protect you and help rebuild your country until you are ready to stand on your own and prevent terrorism from taking root in this country once again."
Karzai once again called on Taliban militants to renounce violence and join the peace process.
Taliban militants, whose bloody insurgency entered its ninth year, have repeatedly rejected Karzai's call for peace, citing the existence of foreign troops as the main obstacle.
"Peace is something that the Afghan people demand that on daily basis, so if the Taliban reject our calls for peace millions of times, we will repeat them for millions of times more," the president said.
"If they want the foreign forces to go out of Afghanistan sooner, then they should come, negotiate and bring peace so that there is no need for such a situation as it is now," he added.
Rasmussen came on the same day as ISAF announced that a British soldier was killed in small arms fire in southern Afghanistan. With around 500 international soldiers killed so far this year, 2009 marked the deadliest year for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"We are paying a heavy price as are the Afghan people and the Afghan security forces, but we know that the price leaving too early will be far higher," Rasmussen said, adding that the transition of security to Afghan forces would be "condition-based not calender-driven."
...