KABUL: Foreign soldiers could still be fighting in Afghanistan well beyond the 2014 date for a full handover of powers to local forces, NATO's civilian representative in the country said on Wednesday. Mark Sedwill said 2014 was a “goal” not a deadline for the transition of responsibility to Afghan authorities but that the exact number of places where local forces will be in charge of security would become clear nearer the time. The date was “realistic but not guaranteed”, Sedwill said. “We expect to have strategic overwatch around large parts of the country by then (2014) but the Afghans having the lead does not mean that we have completed the process in every single district by then,” he told reporters. “That's why we have been very careful about choosing the language: that they have the lead but it's not that we're done by the end of 2014.” Sedwill was speaking before NATO leaders gather on Friday for a two-day summit likely to be dominated by the alliance's continued involvement in Afghanistan. The meeting would likely see the 28-member bloc back a plan for the full transfer of powers to the Afghan government in four years' time, he said. An assessment about which areas of the war-torn country could start the process in the next six months to two years had been submitted but would not be made public until the Afghan government disclosed it, he added. “We will start with several provinces” in the “first half of 2011”, he told reporters in Kabul. “In some cases it will be the whole province... in other cases it will start at district or below district, municipality or town level and work its way up.” US President Barack Obama last year indicated that troops could begin withdrawing from July 2011, as he announced a surge of tens of thousands of soldiers to quell the deadly Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan. But his administration has recently rowed back, amid concern that the date has been interpreted as a full withdrawal of all foreign forces and that conditions on the ground are not yet favourable for a drawdown of troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai's aim of a complete handover by the end of 2014 is now seen as more realistic. Sedwill said that foreign forces would gradually pull back from next year, with NATO troops taking a supporting and mentoring role to the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army, as happened in Iraq. Fewer foreign soldiers would be seen on the streets of Afghanistan, he added. “But there might still be one or two parts of the country where the transition process is ongoing and that might last into 2015 and beyond,” Sedwill said. “This is the point about 2014. It's not an end of the mission. It's not even a complete change of mission but it's an inflexion point where the balance, we think, by then will have shifted.” Special forces units may also be required for counter-terrorism operations beyond 2014, he added. Sedwill was upbeat on the overall NATO mission, despite a high rate of casualties, and said foreign troops had now gained the upper hand in the nine-year fight against the militants. “It's still clearly fragile. There are significant risks and there will be a long and hard campaign ahead,” he said. – Agence France
