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| Sunday, 27 January 2002 |
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good start, but much to be done in Afghanistan: Annan
KABUL, Jan 26 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was on a historic visit to the region Saturday, delivering a message of support to Afghanistan, and a warning to neighboring countries not to interfere in its affairs. The United Nations chief arrived in Tehran late Friday from Kabul for two days of meetings with Iranian leaders on rebuilding Afghanistan. On Friday Annan paid a brief but historic visit to Afghanistan that was focused on national and regional security, and the next phase of the war-torn country's planned transition to a stable government. Annan, the first UN secretary general to step on Afghan soil since 1959, met interim leader Hamid Karzai, visited a recently reopened girls' school, toured the rubble-strewn capital, and held talks with leaders of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). At a media conference with Karzai at the end of the visit, Annan said the United Nations was determined to walk "hand in hand" with the interim administration to implement programmes planned during this week's donors' conference in Tokyo, where 4.5 billion dollars was pledged towards rebuilding Afghanistan. "We have made a good start but there's a lot to be done," Annan said. "We intend to move ahead very, very quickly, as fast as we can and as fast as the funds are released." Annan also issued a stern warning to neighbouring countries not to interfere in Afghanistan's affairs. In Washington on Friday, Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said he had seen no evidence that Iran was destabilising Afghanistan, amid reports citing US intelligence officials that Iran was arming some Afghan factions. Iran has denied the charges. Abdullah met US Secretary of State Colin Powell to prepare for Karzai's talks at the White House on Monday with President George W. Bush. "I have heard rumors about it. I've not seen evidence as based on fact on it," Abdullah said in a joint appearance with Powell at the State Department. Back in Kabul, Karzai read out a list of 21 Afghans whom the UN had chosen to make up a commission to organise a "Loya Jirga," or tribal council, charged with setting Afghanistan on the path to elections in two years. Karzai said the Loya Jirga was "the most important task for the interim administration and for the United Nations". Annan's visit came amid rising concern over the security situation, with increasing reports of banditry, lawlessness, factional fighting and tribal tensions around the country. Karzai said a distinction should be made between fighting and "skirmishes," which were a fact of life in Afghanistan and did not have "any political significance at all". He and Annan had not discussed any plans to extend the size and areas of deployment of the ISAF, which is currently set to number 4,500 foreign soldiers in the Kabul area by mid-February. But the Afghan leader said people from the provinces had been imploring him to secure international soldiers in all main centres. "Our thinking is that if there is a need for that, they will come and we will have them in the provinces." Francesc Vendrell, the UN's outgoing deputy special envoy to Afghanistan, this week said he believed up to 30,000 peacekeepers would be needed to secure Afghanistan. General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, made his first visit to Kabul Friday. He met Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim to discuss security problems, local television reported. Annan arrived in Kabul a day after US special forces launched one of their biggest ground assaults in Afghanistan, killing more than a dozen suspected al-Qaeda members or Taliban supporters, and capturing 27. A defence official in Washington said an AC-130 gunship also destroyed a huge cache of munitions in the raid about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of the southern city of Kandahar. The firefight erupted as US troops pressed their search for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, and his one-time Taliban protector Mullah Mohammad Omar. In the tense Pakistan-India standoff, intensified by the US-led war on terrorism, Pakistani foreign minister Abdul Sattar said that his country would not be provoked into responding to India's test of a short-range version of its nuclear-capable Agni missile. The test Friday from the Chandipur test range off the eastern coastal Indian state of Orissa drew a strong response from Pakistan which described it as a threat to regional security, especially at a time of heightened tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi. On another front in the US-led war on terrorism, fresh fighting erupted Friday in the southern Philippines between government troops and Islamic guerrillas who might be the next target for US action. Philippine military officials said an undetermined number of Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels were believed killed in the clash on Basilan island, where the guerrillas are holding a US missionary couple hostage with a Filipina nurse. More US troops arrived in the southern Philippines on Friday, part of an expected 600-strong contingent that will take part in war exercises including operations against the Abu Sayyaf, believed to have links to al-Qaeda. A delegation of 20 members of the US Congress travelled meanwhile to the US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Friday, to inspect conditions at the detention camp housing 158 prisoners from Afghanistan. The visit is the latest in a series arranged by the US military in the face of accusations of mistreatment of the prisoners who arrived shackled and hooded at the open-air, maximum-security facility for indefinite stays. |
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