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| Updated: 01-Aug-2006 | NATO Speeches |
Kabul, 20 July 200 |
Press conference by
NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,
De Hoop Scheffer: As you know General Jones and I have been touring the country over the past two days, yesterday starting in Kabul with the political conversations with the Afghan government, with representatives of the international organizations and other things you do in a capital, and today we have been out in the south. Let me start by very briefly repeating my key message yesterday, that is NATO is in Afghanistan and NATO will stay the course. NATO has entered a longer term commitment. NATO will not fail -and we see that in the south- about which I'll remark in a moment. We have to lift our game. The international community has to lift its game because I think security without development is not possible, there's no military solution for Afghanistan. So the international community has to lift its game and the Afghan government has to lift its game in the sense that it should find corruption, it should appoint the right governors, the right police chiefs. That is the basis. What have we seen today, (inaudible)... here at regional command in Kandahar. We have seen that it works. There is resistance, there here sometimes strong resistance. But up 'til now there has already been remarkable development if you talk about nation-building, if you talk about reconstruction. Many hospitals have been built, roads have been built, schools have been built. Also in the south... In other words if you see NATO come in -NATO ISAF, may I stress once again, under a mandate of the security council of the United Nations; that's our basis, that's the reason we are here... If you see NATO coming in with... doubling the forces the coalition had in the southern provinces, you see two things. a) is that it will be more much more efficient and effective given the fact that there are more forces to confront any spoiler -be it the Taliban, be it the drugs lords, be it a war lord- and secondly that it is possible that reconstruction takes place. In other words, that the mandate of ISAF, the United Nations' mandate of ISAF to extend the authority of the Afghan government, to be instrumental in reconstruction, bringing the Afghan democracy forward is already working. And I'm quite sure, on the base of what we've seen and on the base of the briefings we have got that it will work. NATO will stay the course. We now are in our third phase -I'm quite sure the General Jones will comment on that- extending ISAF in the south, and we might soon enter a fourth phase as I said yesterday but I leave that to... to General Jones. In other words, if I sum up our visit, lifting the game in the political sense, NATO staying the course, NATO being able -NATO ISAF- being able to do what it's supposed to do under this UN mandate, and trust in the future although the going will from time to time be tough, without any doubt. There are spoilers, there will be spoilers, the going will get tough. But I can... I can tell you ladies and gentlemen that I've become more convinced than I was when I went to Afghanistan that NATO will do the job very well in corporation, in close coordination, of course, with the Afghan government. We've talked about Afghan ownership here, we've been briefed about the important role of the Afghan National Army here in the South just a moment ago, in other words joining hands with the Afghans, with our Afghan hosts I would say, it will be possible to do it, it will be possible to show the average Afghan that his standard of living will improve and that he also can enjoy democracy and basic freedoms. Thank you very much. I'll pass the floor with pleasure to General Jones. James L. Jones: Thank you Secretary General. From my perspective, I'll just make a few brief comments about the military situation in the days ahead. I am extremely satisfied and very appreciative of the very close work and relationship that we've had with the coalition, Operation Enduring Freedom during this period of transition. And our meetings in Kabul, which included General Abu Ghraib very briefly, meetings with COMISAF and the staff at Kabul in the regional commands here in the South, visiting the PRTs, gives me great confidence that our expansion in the stage three is well-sourced; we'll continue to push for 100 percent of all our sourcing requirements, the Secretary General would be disappointed if we didn't. De Hoop Scheffer: Absolutely. Jones: For a NATO mission, in my experience in NATO, the family of nations has really come together in a most impressive display and I'm quite confident that we are going to do achieve our goals, we're going to do it in a way that the Secretary General just outlined for you. And I think we're going to be very proud of the work that all of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines from our many nations working close together in cooperation with the increasing capabilities that Afghan's own national security forces, is going to bring a great change to this part of the country. And we're working forward to the days and weeks ahead. Thank you. Scheffer: (In Dutch) Er wordt daar een hele grote investering gepleegd. Ik was getroffen door de enorme motivatie van de officieren, vrouwen en mannen die ik daar heb ontmoet. Er wordt daar een enorm kamp gebouwd. Er wordt veel geinvesteerd te voorbereiding van verdere activiteiten voor reconstructie en Nederland komt daar ook met "tanden" om het zo te zeggen om duidelijk te maken dat diegene die het proces van wederopbouw willen verstoren dat die ook zullen weten dat bondgenoot Nederland samen met andere NATO bondgenoten daar is. Dus je ziet een goede combinatie van de wil om snel aan de gang te gaan met verdere opbouw, democratisering en reconstructie en om aan de andere kant heel duidelijk te maken dat al diegene die het proces willen verstoren de consequenties van de Nederlandse aanwezigheid, ook militaire aanwezigheid zullen ondervinden. Jones: The Security situation at the moment, throughout Afghanistan is... is in my view satisfactory. We're doing good work in the North and in the West and there are parts of Afghanistan that are very stable. But clearly there is more activity here in this part of the country. There are quite a few reasons for that. But I think that the troops that are coming in, the level of the force and the capabilities, the unity that we have with... with OEF and the coalition forces is going to be more than a match for anything that... that can be thrown against us. But I do think that we do have to recognize that this is a... We are at a strategic point where the... ISAF and the coalition will prevail and we will get on with the business of restoring security, bringing security and stability to this part of the country, which really hasn't seen the kind of presence, permanent presence that we are about to bring to it, and that has something to do with the opposing factions that aren't particularly pleased with that but we don't intend to give them a choice in the matter. I think that the key to moving the stage forward is how well we do stage three, that is to say: have we generated the force? Have we got the command in control right, the rules of engagement are clear? And have we achieved the unity of command between us and the unity of efforts between us and the OEF? And the answer to those questions is without a doubt yes. And so, the transition period between stage three and stage four, if we do stage three well -and we are doing it very well- I think does not have to be very long, and from a standpoint of unity of command and unity of effort, I would argue that unless there is a very good reason not to, that it would be a prudent thing to unify the mission completely as soon as possible. So I think the Secretary General is absolutely correct that certainly by the Riga Summit or sooner, that would be my preference would be sooner, we should be able to achieve this. With regard to activities in other parts of the country, very difficult to predict what's going to happen in anyone area. But we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul here, we're not moving forces from the north because it's been more peaceful down here. We are keeping the level of forces that we had, we're expanding the capabilities of the Afghan National Army. We're going to pay much more attention to the police forces and we are multiplying the presence of our forces down here by considerable factors. So more capability, more presence, more stability, more opportunity for the PRTs to expand their spirits of influence; more opportunities for the Karzai government to expand its reach and more opportunities for the international community to focus its aid in reconstruction... |
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