14 October 2009
The UK's role in Afghanistan represents an enormous challenge for Britain and the international community. Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave an update on the UK’s involvement in Afghanistan on 14 October 2009.
The Prime Minister said:
“These are aims that are clear and justified - and also realistic and achievable. It remains my judgement that a safer Britain requires a safer Afghanistan, and in Afghanistan last week, I was further convinced that, despite the challenges we face, a nation emerging from three decades of violence can be healed and strengthened; and that our country and the whole world can be safer; because together we have the values, the strategy and the resolve to complete our vital task.” Read the full statement on the Number 10 website.
The Prime Minister has also welcomed the announcement of a second ballot in the Afghanistan elections. "It is vital that the new Afghan government has legitimacy in the eyes of its people," said the Prime Minister in a 20 October statement. Read the full statement on the Number 10 website.
The UK is engaged in Afghanistan because it became a source of terrorism that threatened Britain and the rest of the world. The Taleban gave safe haven to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which allowed terrorists to plan and carry out terrorist attacks around the world.
The United Nations authorised military intervention to tackle this threat – an international mission involving over 40 countries led by NATO with the support of the UN, the G8, NATO and the EU – because we all face the same threat from terrorism.
But ridding Afghanistan of the brutal Taleban regime and expelling Al Qaeda was only the first part of the job. The second is to make sure they cannot return.
Twenty years of war completely destroyed Afghanistan’s infrastructure, economy and institutions. The UK and the international community need to increase the size and capacity of the Afghan state so that it can protect its people, giving them physical and economic security. This summer saw the first Afghan run elections in over 30 years and the UK is supporting the Afghan political process to reach out to those who are willing to accept the democratic process and abandon violence. We are working on all fronts to help the Afghan Government to:
We work with the international community's institutions, the United Nations and World Bank, and alongside the Afghan authorities to help the Afghan people to develop their government and society.
We are the third largest donor to Afghanistan, having spent over £740 million in the last eight years, and have committed more than £510 million over the next four. Approximately half of our development assistance is channelled through the World Bank administered Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, and is primarily used to pay the wages of teachers and healthcare workers. The rest is spent through our two missions in Afghanistan. The British Embassy in Kabul is one of our largest missions in the world, and together with the British-led Civil Military Mission in Helmand, we have just under 300 UK civilian staff working in Afghanistan.
And we are generating progress – child and maternal death rates have fallen, and basic healthcare now covers 82 percent of the country. In 2001 only a million children were in school, all boys. Today there are 6.6 million children enrolled in schools – more than a third girls - and the figure is expected to hit eight million by 2012/13. All these internationally assisted activities are part of stabilising Afghan society to allow governance to grow and they are underpinned by our security measures. Some three quarters of the Afghan people feel that their lives have improved over the last year and the same proportion are optimistic that their lives will improve again next year.
Military assistance is required in parts of Afghanistan, protecting the Afghan people and facing down the insurgency. British Forces, alongside Afghan forces are taking the fight to the Taliban in southern Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). There have been significant military successes.
In the longer term, it means an Afghan Government, including army and police, strong enough to take on terrorism and violent extremism throughout the country.
So at the same time as UK troops make a major and courageous contribution to the international effort, confronting the insurgency and providing security to the Afghan people, we are building up the Afghan Army and Police so they can take on this job themselves. This means training and working alongside Afghan forces. The Afghan army are now running security in parts of Kabul, and they work alongside ISAF in the majority of operations. The overall aim is the transfer of security to Afghan lead throughout the country.
The international community has already trained over 90,000 Afghan troops, and thousands of Afghan police, who are improving rapidly in competence. The progress we have made is real, and we are working towards the day when our and other NATO troops are no longer needed on the frontline and Afghanistan can stand up to the threat posed by terrorism itself.
Read more about military assistance to Afghanistan on the websites of the UK Ministry of Defence and the NATO International Security Assistance Force.
But the worldwide threat of terrorism cannot be countered by acting in Afghanistan in isolation.
As coalition forces removed the Taleban from power and drove Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, so Al Qaeda retreated to the remote mountains of Pakistan.
Approximately three-quarters of the most serious terrorism plots against the UK have had links that reach back into these mountains.
The Government strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, published in April, reflects an integrated approach across both countries. And we are now seeing what has not been obvious before: joint and complementary action on both sides of the border.
At present the threat comes mainly from the Pakistan side of the border and the international community are working to help the Government of Pakistan to defeat it. A stable Pakistan is strategically important to British interests and to the region; but it requires high level political, diplomatic and official engagement more than directly deployed resources. It has a large and well funded army and a strong democratic government with which we can work. There is a shared threat in the region of violent extremism, which threatens both the legitimately elected Afghan and Pakistani governments, and also poses a wider strategic threat to UK security interests.
The UK stands ready as a steadfast partner to help the Pakistani and Afghan governments tackle this threat, for all our benefit; but Pakistan and Afghanistan are different countries, at different stages of development, and so our support to them takes different but complementary forms.
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