NATO foreign ministers to meet on Afghanistan

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, April 22, 2013
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Foreign ministers of the NATO and other troop contributing nations will meet Tuesday to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said here Monday.

The 50 foreign ministers of NATO and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) nations, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and representatives from the United Nations and the European Union, will meet to discuss developments of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and the future of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, spokesman Dominic Medley told a joint press briefing.

"At the meeting tomorrow, ministers will discuss the significant milestone expected later this year, when the Afghan National Security Forces take the lead for security across the country," he said.

Currently, 100,000-strong foreign troops with nearly 66,000 of them Americans are being deployed in Afghanistan.

"In a separate meeting, NATO foreign ministers will also talk with their Russian counterpart. Amongst other topics, they are expected to launch the second phase of the NATO-Russia Council Helicopter Maintenance Trust Fund for Afghanistan," Medley added.

Under the U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan, 33,000 U.S. troops already pulled out of Afghanistan last year and another 34,000 will return home by February next year. Most of ISAF are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

The ANSF have taken full control of areas where about 75 percent of Afghan population lives.

At the same briefing, the Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Seddiq Seddiqi utterly rejected a report released by a Non- Governmental Organization "Safety Office" which said there were 2, 331 insurgent-initiated attacks in the first quarter of this year, a 47 percent increase over the same period last year.

"Our assessment is different. The Interior Ministry and the Afghan National Police (ANP) have registered 1,020 security incidents across the country in the first three months in 2013," he said, adding that the findings of the Afghan NGO Safety Office was totally incorrect. Endi

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