MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brown proposes Afghanistan campaign “transfer timetable” talks

PM Brown making his annual foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet in the City of London (Photo AP)

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to host talks in the New Year to discuss timing for handing over the campaign in Afghanistan to the Afghan government. PM Brown said he wanted the NATO meeting to “set a timetable” for transfer starting in 2010.

He called for a “district by district” process of passing the responsibility for security to Afghan forces. Downing Street said the London event was not an “exit” summit - just an opportunity to discuss future strategy.

Mr Brown - who also mounted a defence of the UK's presence in Afghanistan - was making his annual foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet in the City of London Monday evening.

He was speaking following the announcement that a member of the Royal Engineers was killed by an explosion in Helmand province on Sunday: the 97th UK serviceman to be killed in Afghanistan this year.

“Following the inauguration this week of President Karzai, I'm urging him to set out the contract between the new government and its people, including early action on corruption,” the prime minister said.

“The international community will meet to agree plans for the support we will provide to Afghanistan during this next phase. I have offered London as a venue in the New Year.

”I want that conference to chart a comprehensive political framework within which the military strategy can be accomplished.

“It should identify a process for transferring district by district to Afghan control, and if at all possible we should set a timetable for transferring districts starting in 2010.”

Mr Brown has acknowledged that al-Qaeda is not currently operating in Afghanistan.

But in his speech he cautioned that it continued to recruit and train.

“Al-Qaeda relies on a permissive environment in the tribal areas of Pakistan and - if they can re-establish one - in Afghanistan,” Mr Brown warned.

He said there were “several hundred” foreign fighters still based in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, attending training camps to learn bomb-making and weapons skills.

The group continued to operate “an extensive recruitment network across Africa, the Middle East, western Europe - and in the UK”, he added.

“Al-Qaeda had links to the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban before 2001; we must deny terrorists the room to operate which the Taliban regime allowed the 9/11 attackers,” he argued. We are in Afghanistan because we judge that, if the Taliban regained power, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would once more have an environment in which they could operate”.

“We are there because action in Afghanistan is not an alternative to action in Pakistan, but an inseparable support to it.

”At every point in our history where we have looked outwards, we have become stronger.

“And that is why I say our foreign policy must be both patriotic and internationalist: a foreign policy that recognises Britain's unique strengths to offer, defends Britain's national interests strongly - not by retreating into isolation, but by advancing in international co-operation.”

He warned that al-Qaeda was the “greatest current risk to UK lives” - and that this year's fighting had had the greatest impact on the group of any 12-month period since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001.

Earlier this month, Kim Howells, chairman of the influential intelligence and security committee, became the most senior Labour figure to call for British troops to be pulled out of the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF).

The former foreign office minister called for the majority of UK forces to be brought home to concentrate on protective measures to prevent terror attacks in the UK.

But Mr Brown rejected this argument in his speech, saying: “At every point in our history where we have looked outwards, we have become stronger. And now, more than ever, there is no future in what was once called 'splendid isolation”.

”When Britain is bold, when Britain is engaged, when Britain is confident and outward-looking, we have shown time and again that Britain has a power and an energy that far exceeds the limits of our geography, our population, and our means.

“As a nation we have every reason to be optimistic about our prospects: let us be confident in our alliances, faithful to our values, determined as progressive pioneers to shape the world to come.”

He attempted to set out what he saw as Britain's role in the world, telling his audience: “I believe that Britain can inspire, challenge and change the world.

”And to do so we must have confidence in our distinctive strengths: our global values, global alliances and global actions; because with conviction in our values and confidence in our alliances, Britain can lead the way in this construction of a new global order” (BBC).-