Afghan forces should be able to take control of several provinces from Western troops by next spring, a senior British official said on Thursday, scaling back a previous British and Nato goal of starting handovers in 2010. "It is our expectation that between the Nato summit (in Lisbon in November) and next spring, the first handful of provinces will have transitioned," said the senior Foreign Office official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The target is less ambitious than an agreement reached by Nato foreign ministers in April to start handing over security responsibility to Afghan forces this year. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who lost Britain's May election, had called for at least five provinces to be transferred to Afghan control by the end of 2010.
The British official said it might still be possible to hand over some provinces before next spring, "but we don't want to set a timetable on that because Nato has not discussed it in detail." The official expected the Nato Lisbon summit to lay out the broad process and timetable for taking transition forward.
Nato and Afghan officials will agree on the criteria for transferring the control of provinces to Afghan forces, the official said. These will focus mainly on security but will also look at factors such as governance and rule of law. Diplomats say the US-led campaign against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan is struggling to deliver results in time for July 2011, the deadline set by President Barack Obama for starting to withdraw US troops. June was the deadliest month for foreign troops since the conflict began.
Britain has 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, the second largest foreign contingent after the United States. The death of 318 British soldiers since 2001 has eroded support for the war in Britain. New Prime Minister David Cameron has said he wants British combat troops home from Afghanistan within five years.
British and other Nato forces have accerlerated their training of Afghan security forces so that they can gradually take over security control, enabling foreign forces to take a back seat and then withdraw. The strategy suffered a setback this week when a renegade Afghan soldier killed three British Gurkha soldiers in the Taliban's heartland, testing the trust of foreign and local troops fighting together.
The British official said some districts might be ready for a transfer to Afghan control before the entire province in which they were located. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague are among dozens of foreign ministers due to meet in Kabul on July 20-21 to try to drive forward the Afghan economy and improve the way the country is governed.
The British official said the Afghan government planned to bring government departments together in clusters headed by senior ministers to try to improve the delivery of services. The clusters would draw up 100-day plans to improve their efficiency with the backing of international donors, the official said.
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