Obama: NATO shifting to help peace in Afghanistan

NATO Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Anders Fogh Ras­mussen speaks to media before state and gov­ern­ment lead­ers arrive at the NATO Sum­mit in Chicago, Sun­day. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ANNE GEARAN, JULIE PACE

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHICAGO — The NATO alliance that has fought for a decade in Afghanistan is help­ing that nation shift toward sta­bil­ity and peace, but there will be “hard days ahead,” Pres­i­dent Barack Obama said Sun­day as alliance lead­ers insisted the fight­ing coali­tion will remain effec­tive despite France’s plans to yank com­bat troops out early.

With a global eco­nomic cri­sis and wan­ing pub­lic sup­port for the war as a back­drop, world lead­ers opened a NATO sum­mit con­fronted by ques­tions about Afghanistan’s post-conflict future: money for secu­rity forces, com­ing elec­tions and more. Ger­man offi­cials cau­tioned against fol­low­ing France’s exam­ple, but NATO’s sec­re­tary gen­eral and the U.S. com­man­der of NATO forces in Afghanistan played down stresses in the fight­ing alliance.

“We still have a lot of work to do and there will be great chal­lenges ahead,” Obama said. “The loss of life con­tin­ues in Afghanistan and there will be hard days ahead.”

The NATO sum­mit opened Sun­day after­noon, with lead­ers hold­ing a moment of silence to pay trib­ute to force killed or injured while serv­ing the alliance.

“Just as we’ve sac­ri­ficed together for our com­mon secu­rity, we will stand united in our deter­mi­na­tion to com­plete this mis­sion,” Obama said.

The end of the war is in sight, Obama said fol­low­ing a lengthy dis­cus­sion with Afghan Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai on the side­lines of the NATO sum­mit. The mil­i­tary alliance is pledged to remain in Afghanistan into 2014, but will seal plans Sun­day and Mon­day to shift for­eign forces off the front lines a year faster than once planned.

Afghan forces will take the lead through­out the nation next year, instead of in 2014, despite uneven per­for­mance under U.S. and other out­side tute­lage so far. The shift is in large part a response to plum­met­ing pub­lic sup­port for the war in Europe and the United States, con­trib­u­tors of most of the 130,000 for­eign troops now fight­ing the Taliban-led insur­gency. A major­ity of Amer­i­cans now say the war is unwinnable or not worth continuing.

Karzai said his nation is look­ing for­ward to the end of war, “so that Afghanistan is no longer a bur­den on the shoul­der of our friends in the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, on the shoul­ders of the United States and our other allies.”

Obama said NATO part­ners would dis­cuss “a vision for post-2014 in which we have ended our com­bat role, the Afghan war as we under­stand it is over, but our com­mit­ment to friend­ship and part­ner­ship to Afghanistan continues.”

Newly elected French Pres­i­dent Fran­cois Hol­lande has said he will with­draw all French com­bat troops from Afghanistan by year’s end — a full two years before the time­line agreed to by nations in the U.S.-led NATO coalition.

Hollande’s stance was fac­ing some resistance.

Ger­man for­eign min­is­ter Guido West­er­welle cau­tioned Sun­day in Chicago that “with­drawal com­pe­ti­tion” among coun­tries with troops in Afghanistan could strengthen the ter­ror­ist threat. And Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel said Ger­many stood “very firmly” behind the prin­ci­ple of “in together, out together.”

Hol­lande, speak­ing briefly to French reporters out­side a Chicago hotel, insisted he was being “prag­matic” in his new lead­er­ship. “I am prag­matic in my effort to let the alliance con­tinue to work for our defense and secu­rity, and at the same time make sure that our sol­diers can come home from Afghanistan by the end of 2012.”

NATO Sec­re­tary Gen­eral Anders Fogh Ras­mussen denied there were fresh cracks in the alliance. He sug­gested a deal will emerge for France to move into a non­com­bat role but con­tinue to sup­port the inter­na­tional mission.

“There will be no rush for the exits,” Ras­mussen said. “Our goal, our strat­egy, our timetable remain unchanged.”

Pressed about the impact of the French with­drawal, Gen. John Allen, the top com­man­der of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, offered no pub­lic con­cern about a spillover effect. “The mantra of this par­tic­u­lar mis­sion has been in together, out together,” he told reporters. “And I’m not see­ing, frankly, many voices being raised that would oppose that.”

Before the one-hour meet­ing with Karzai, a senior U.S. offi­cial said the prime topic was plan­ning for Afghanistan’s 2014 elec­tions, as well as the prospect of a polit­i­cal set­tle­ment with the Taliban.

Karzai has said repeat­edly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, open­ing the way for new elec­tions. NATO’s sched­uled end of the war was built around those plans, with for­eign forces stay­ing until the 2014 elec­tion but exit­ing the coun­try by 2015.

The U.S. offi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymity to dis­cuss sen­si­tive diplo­macy, said before the meet­ing that Obama and Karzai also were to dis­cuss prospects for a polit­i­cal set­tle­ment or peace pact between Karzai’s gov­ern­ment and the Taliban-led insur­gency. The Tal­iban pulled out of U.S.-led talks in March, but sep­a­rate talks among Afghan and other con­tacts con­tinue, the U.S. offi­cial said.

The Tal­iban is urg­ing nations fight­ing in Afghanistan to fol­low France’s lead and pull their inter­na­tional forces from the war this year.

“We call upon all the other NATO mem­ber coun­tries to avoid work­ing for the polit­i­cal inter­ests of Amer­i­can offi­cials and answer the call of your own peo­ple by imme­di­ately remov­ing all your troops from Afghanistan,” the group said in a state­ment before the meeting.

The national security-focused NATO sum­mit caps an extra­or­di­nary week­end of inter­na­tional sum­mitry. Obama and the lead­ers of the world’s lead­ing indus­trial nations con­vened at Camp David, the pres­i­den­tial retreat in Mary­land, for two days of talks focused in large part on Europe’s eco­nomic crisis.

Join­ing Obama and many of the G-8 lead­ers in Chicago are the heads of NATO alliance nations and other coun­tries with a stake in the Afghan war.

Promi­nent among those nations is Pak­istan. Ten­sions between the U.S. and Pak­istan have been run­ning high fol­low­ing sev­eral inci­dents, includ­ing the U.S. raid in Pak­istan that led to the death of Osama bin Laden and a U.S. airstrike that killed two dozen Pak­istani soldiers.

Both coun­tries have been seek­ing to restore nor­mal rela­tions. Pak­istani Pres­i­dent Asif Ali Zardari’s accep­tance of an invi­ta­tion to attend the NATO sum­mit was seen as an indi­ca­tion that his coun­try would reopen major roads used to sup­ply NATO fight­ing forces in Afghanistan, a key U.S. demand.

White House offi­cials said that while they believe an agree­ment on reopen­ing the sup­ply routes will be reached, they do not expect that to hap­pen dur­ing the NATO meet­ings. The two nations are hag­gling over how much Pak­istan will be paid to allow the heavy trans­port truck to pass through. A senior U.S. offi­cial said the two sides are far apart. The offi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity to dis­cuss sen­si­tive diplomacy.

Offi­cials have indi­cated that Obama and Zardari will not meet one on one until the mat­ter is resolved. Although miffed, Zardari did meet with Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton in Chicago.

“I do hope that we will see a reopen­ing of the tran­sit routes in the very near future,” Ras­mussen said. “These nego­ti­a­tions will con­tinue, but I am hope­ful that they will be con­cluded in a pos­i­tive manner.”

Posted by AP News on May 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.