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Q: Mr. Diego Ruiz-Palmer, you're the head of the Planning Section in the Operations Division here at NATO Headquarters. Thank you for joining us today and taking time to talk about NATO's evolving and expanding engagement in Afghanistan.
At the Istanbul Summit in June this year, NATO announced a significant expansion of its presence in Afghanistan. How is this progressing?
Ruiz-Palmer: Well, as you will recall at Istanbul Afghanistan...our engagement in Afghanistan was a very important item of business and you will also recall that President Karzai was invited to come to Istanbul and he made a plea to NATO's Heads of State and Government to go ahead with their plans to strengthen ISAF and expand its mission beyond Kabul and a first Provincial Reconstruction Team location we had in Kunduz, to additional locations in northern Afghanistan.
And therefore, at the Summit a decision was taken to go ahead with what we call phase one of our expanding presence in Afghanistan by having the ISAF headquarters assume the leadership of four additional Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
We are talking about two U.K.-led, United Kingdom-led, PRTs at Mazar-e Sharif and Meymana. We also have, in addition to the German-led PRT in Kunduz, a German PRT in Feyzabad, and then an additional Netherlands-led PRT in Baghlan.
In addition to those five PRTs that NATO now has, in northern Afghanistan, we also took what is called a forward support base at Mazar-e Sharif which is a logistical hub which supports the PRT locations, would resupply and other kinds of support from Kabul, if you will. That is a sort of middle point between ISAF headquarters in Kabul and the PRT locations.
Q: And at the same time NATO leaders also announced another important decision and that is to support the Afghan authorities in providing security for the election process, for the preparation of elections and the conduct of elections. What will this actually entail from NATO?
Ruiz-Palmer: Well, you know, as you will remember also, we... a key aspect of NATO's engagement in Afghanistan has been to lend support to what's called the Bonn process of December 2001, which envisages the democratization of Afghanistan through the election of a government and a parliament. And this is now under way. NATO has been very forceful in supporting that process and we have now presidential elections coming up. They will be held on the 9th of October.
It is important that those elections go ahead in a safe and secure environment that allows some nine million Afghan people to vote and exercise the democratic rights in this new age of Afghanistan. There's been an electoral process of registering all these voters and this is almost complete at this time. And the elections therefore will go ahead and NATO will provide considerable support to the electoral process, particularly in Kabul in the northern part of Afghanistan by helping provide a more secure and safe environment backing up the Afghan national army.
Now this is being done by a number of measures. One involves the deployment of a Spanish battalion as a Quick Reaction Force for ISAF based in Mazar-e Sharif, in the northern part of Afghanistan. There is also an Italian battalion from the NATO Response Force that will act as a theatre operational reserve force in Kabul, together with a U.S. QRF, Quick Reaction Force... I'm sorry, a U.S. ORF company.
In addition to that we are deploying additional fixed wing transport aircraft and transport helicopters and the Netherlands is deploying six F-16 fighter combat aircraft and a tanker aircraft, and the United Kingdom is making available six Harrier jump jets. All of those to provide close air support, if necessary, to back up ISAF.
So I think these are important steps which are above and beyond what ISAF is already, today, in Kabul and in these five PRT locations that we have, since this past summer.
Q: Thank you. And when you said that elections are scheduled for the 9th of October, and you mentioned these measures, are they now in place? Are they now being put into place? What is the timing?
Ruiz-Palmer: We're actually very well advanced. Most of these reinforcements are already in place. The Italian and Spanish battalions are mostly complete in-country. The U.S. company will come at the NATO command in a few days. Most of the aircraft, as well, have been deployed.
So by the end of this month, by the end of September, all of these additional forces will be in Afghanistan, ready for the elections on the ninth of October.
Q: How will this actually work in practice? Will NATO troops, or NATO-led troops be guarding polling stations?
Ruiz-Palmer: No. We do not envisage NATO having to be at every polling station. Actually this is a mission that is undertaken jointly between the Afghan transitional authority and the Afghan National Army and the United Nations.
What NATO will do is provide what we would call area security, in the widest sense. That is, ensuring that the overall region of northern Afghanistan, and of course, Kabul and its environments are safe and secure. And for that purpose we will have our forces patrolling, ready to back up the ANA, and of course, be also stand read if there is any need for reinforcement in any particular area.
We will provide situational awareness to the Afghan authorities. We will provide planning support, and of course, this quick reaction capability. So I think this is something that is particular, special. It's a capability that NATO can provide that the Afghans do not have, and therefore NATO is playing here a very specific role that has been requested by the Afghans and the United Nations and would be important also to instil the sense of confidence in the population that they can actually go ahead and exercise the right to vote in a safe environment, but also would provide confidence to the authorities, to the United Nations, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe that these are safe, but also fair elections.
Q: You are, as we mentioned in the beginning, you are the head of the planning section in NATO's operation division. How do you see the way forward for NATO in Afghanistan, after the election. NATO's continuing and evolving engagement?
Ruiz-Palmer: : I think there are two very important dimensions for NATO's continuing and expanding engagement in Afghanistan. One is to continue to provide political support to the Bonn process. As I said earlier, the Bonn process is on track. We have had a constitutional Loya Jurga. This is a grand assembly of political leaders in Afghanistan who approved the new constitution, and we now have elections, presidential elections this fall, and we will have parliamentary elections next spring.
And therefore continuing NATO support is very important to that process, and that is an important pillar of NATO's way forward.
The other dimension is to ensure that NATO continues to go ahead with expansion. That it implements an agreed strategy, which envisages that in a graduate way NATO will take over additional Provincial Reconstruction Teams in other areas of Afghanistan. And therefore that is another aspect of the way forward.
Now, more specifically what I think NATO is going to be doing, and you will see me doing over the next several months, is firstly to back up the authority of the Afghan government. It is very important that this happens, that the authority of the central government, particularly after the presidential and parliamentary elections, be uncontested and be seen to be uncontested.
Secondly, we will continue to provide assistance and support to the Afghan National Army and other Afghan security forces to ensure that they continue to develop their own capability in a way that can assist in enforcing that authority and legitimacy of the Afghan government.
Thirdly, NATO will continue to work with the G8 nations, the Group of 8 nations that is leading what we call the Security Sector Reform Program in a number of areas, extending to the training of this new national army in Afghanistan, to demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of the former militias, private militias and irregular forces, to providing support to the Afghan authorities and the United Nations into counternarcotics area.
And lastly, but very importantly, NATO will continue to engage with Afghanistan's neighbours, particularly the nations to the north of Afghanistan which are members of NATO's Partnership for Peace in order to engage them in regional strategy aimed at ensuring that Afghanistan emerges as a united peaceful country after near three decades of civil war and instability, because that is critical not only to Afghanistan, but it is critical to all the neighbour countries, and we believe that they are committed to that outcome.
Q: You mentioned the issue of drugs and the threat posed by the reinvigorated drugs trade. What is NATO's position on this, or possible involvement?
Ruiz-Palmer: Well, NATO is obviously very concerned about this issue, of the drugs trade, poppy cultivation in the country, because we see this as a threat to the political stability of Afghanistan, and it is also a criminal activity that underlines the legitimacy of the authorities of Afghanistan and undermines everything the international community is trying to do in helping Afghanistan emerge as a united democratic nation.
And therefore NATO has taken quite a strong position that it is essential that Afghanistan, together with the international community, continue to counter this adverse trend in the growth of the drug trade.
This is done in a number of ways. One is providing that kind of political support to the government in Kabul so that government knows that it can count on the Alliance in going ahead with its own quite ambitious plan to eradicate poppy cultivation.
We are also supporting the United Kingdom, which is the nation... the G8 nation which has the lead in counternarcotics, in providing planning support to the Afghan National Army in its own operations as they are being conceived with the United Kingdom.
But ISAF is not directly involved in these operations. We, as I said, provide support to the Afghan authorities, to the ANA, in concert with the United Kingdom, in concert with the other lead nations of the security sector reform process. It is an important task. It is a difficult task, but NATO is committed to facilitate in any way it can the task of the Afghan authorities in taking that campaign forward and eradicating that terrible threat to the stability and the security of the country.
Q: That was looking forward, but it has been also almost a year since NATO took over command of the International Security Assistant Force in August 2003. What would you describe as some of the main achievements over this past year?
Ruiz-Palmer: I think there are several achievements that NATO can be proud of. When you think of it, it'll just be about a year that NATO took command of ISAF, in August 2003. And within a year we took command of that force that had been in country for about 18 months. We expanded, first to Konduz and then to an additional four location in northern Afghanistan. We have decided to support the constitutional process and have the elections and we are committed to continue to expand our footprint and our presence.
So within a year we have done a lot. Now this has translated into a number of things. I think, first we have made a collective political commitment, as an Alliance: 26 nations, plus a number of non-NATO nations who are cooperating with NATO. And that, I think, is very important, and I think it has given a lot of reassurance and support to the Afghan authorities as they move forward with their democratization and reconstruction efforts.
Secondly, I think we have brought continuity and stability to the ISAF mission. One of the challenges of ISAF before is that every six months they had to look for a new lead nation, a new headquarters and new force contributions. NATO, by taking over all that planning has allowed their process now to take place in a very smooth way. We're now looking some 18 months to two years ahead of time, and we know what a headquarters would be, where the forces will be allocated and that brings continuity to the mission and allows the ISAF leadership to really concentrate on the mission.
Thirdly, and very importantly, we have brought security to Kabul. You go on the streets of Kabul, talk to the man, the woman in the street, and you will get immediate feedback that ISAF has made a tremendous difference in the streets of Kabul and in the day, at night, and that is an important achievement, and we are now replicating that achievement in the various PRT locations that NATO has in northern Afghanistan.
And lastly, I think NATO has been instrumental through ISAF in facilitating reconstruction efforts in Kabul and in the PRT locations, working with the Afghan authorities, working with the United Nations, non-governmental organizations in providing both a safe environment, but also providing some more direct support where necessary.
All of those things, I think have made quite a difference, and that's why I think there our track record gives us confidence that we'll be able to push forward as an Alliance and ensure that this process that was started in Bonn in December 2001 will continue to go ahead and that we can be confident that in a few years from now we will have a united and democratic Afghanistan who will overcome a lot of the legacy of the past and that will be a safer place and that is, I think, something that is achievable and that NATO will continue to work on very hard.