Afghani Foreign Min: More Coalition Troops Needed In South
Rangin Dadfar Spanta, here to meet his counterpart David Miliband, told BBC radio that while long-term efforts had to focus on reconstruction and training the Afghan army, a military push was required to clamp down on the Taliban.
The U.K., whose over 8,000 troops in the country are largely battling the Taliban in the south, has regularly called for other coalition allies to take a greater share of the fighting burden.
"The problems that we have to face today in Afghanistan are mainly in the south and southeast part of Afghanistan," Spanta said. "We have to work hard together to remove this political and military situation in this part of the world.
"The military often is not only the option but still in the south and southeast part of Afghanistan is the relevant option to fight terrorists," he said. "For the short-term strategy of course we need more forces in the south and the southeast part to control cross-border terrorist activities in Afghanistan but these troops have to be fighter troops, to be active."
Spanta welcomed the election of Democratic candidate Barack Obama as the next U.S. president. The Illinois senator has pledged to refocus U.S. military efforts away from Iraq and onto Afghanistan.
"Obama's election in the U.S., from our point of view, is the continuation of the U.S. policy regarding Afghanistan," Spanta said. "We highly welcome his election and I hope we can extend and deepen our cooperation with the U.S. as lead nation in the anti-terror war and I am sure we can do it."
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 12, 2008 05:46 ET (10:46 GMT)
Publié le 12 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones
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