Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband arrived in Kabul on Tuesday for his first visit to Afghanistan since being named to the post less than a month ago, officials said.
Miliband said in a statement that he had travelled to Afghanistan to underline Britain's commitment to helping the war-torn country in its post-Taliban era, especially on the issue of improving security.
While in Kabul, Miliband attended the funeral of Afghanistan's last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who died Monday aged 92. The British embassy here said Miliband would visit British troops in the southern province of Helmand, one of Afghanistan's most insurgency-hit areas and also its main opium producing region.
The statement said the minister - who will be in Afghanistan for two days - was there "to listen and to learn about what I believe to be a set of challenges of unusual severity and extraordinary complexity".