Reply #10: Afghanistan needs 30-year commitment, EU envoy says [View All]

[Demeter]

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1614562.php/INTERVIEW-Afghanistan-needs-30-year-commitment-EU-envoy-says

The international community - including increasingly hostile public opinion in the European Union - needs to face the fact that Afghanistan will need support 'for the next 30 years rather than 30 months,' the bloc's envoy to Kabul has said.

Under a target set by President Hamid Karzai and backed by NATO, Afghanistan is expected to take care of all of its own security by the end of 2014, while US President Barack Obama said that a gradual drawdown of US troops is to begin in mid-2011.

But while recognizing that 'the military footprint will change and will be reduced overall,' EU Special Representative Vygaudas Usackas warned that 'we should not speak about 30 months, but probably think in terms of 30 years.'

'We have to be honest with ourselves that there are no quick solutions in this country,' the former Lithuanian foreign minister told the German Press Agency dpa in a telephone interview from Kabul on Tuesday...