Afghan security
January 23, 2010
In her weekly video podcast on Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would concentrate its military efforts in northern Afghanistan while accelerating the training of Afghan security forces.
"So that rebuilding can take place, and so that the training of security forces can occur, it is necessary that the (Afghan) population is protected from the Taliban," the chancellor said.
Merkel has consistently rejected calls to make a military commitment ahead of a January 28 international conference in London on western strategy in Afghanistan.
In her podcast, the chancellor also said that "formidable training efforts" were needed for the Afghan forces, and that Germany would pursue this in "a faster and more concentrated form than has been the case until now."
"Without peace there is no reconstruction, but without reconstruction there will be no peace either," she added.
Linking the increased civil reconstruction help to the gradual transfer of security duties to Afghan forces, she said: "The people will feel, if responsibility is taken over step-by-step, that there is a better civilian reconstruction (effort)."
The comments come as speculation rages in Germany about whether more soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan, and less than a week before a key NATO-led strategy conference in London. Germany already has about 4,500 troops stationed in that country.
The podcast came a day after the opposition Social Democrats called for a definite withdrawal date of 2015 for the Budeswehr's mission in Afghanistan, which was promptly rejected by the government.
Support for Taliban reintegration
Meanwhile, German Development Minister Dirk Niebel told Focus news magazine that Germany could offer financial support for the move to offer material incentives to Taliban fighters.
"I can imagine that the federal government will participate in such a fund," Niebel said.
It was important that a new “perspective is offered to those fighters who are willing to renounce violence and abide by the Afghan Constitution,” he added.
On Friday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai unveiled an ambitious Western-funded plan to offer money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms in an effort to quell a crippling insurgency.
His comments to the BBC came as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described the Taliban as part of Afghanistan's "political fabric," but he added that any future role would depend on them laying down their weapons.
Karzai is expected to present the plan - aimed at pulling in lower to mid-level Taliban fighters - to donors at the conference in London.
Doubts over plan
Skeptics question the Afghan government's ability to draw tens of thousands of fighters from the hills by offering stipends, job training and education, as well as protection that has previously not been there.
The Afghan official in charge of the program, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, said final details were being sorted out and there would be a meeting of elders and influential leaders from the provincial and district levels after the London conference.
"This will be a broader, detailed program and it will be implemented at all levels... They need to be able to join the peace process with dignity," Stanekzai said.
rb/AFP/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar