Afghanistan's next government must take security into its own hands so as to allow the West to draw up its exit strategy by 2013, dpa qouted several European Union foreign ministers as saying at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. "At some point in time I hope that we will have a transition to an even more political and less military phase of engagement in Afghanistan. Whether this will take three or four years is difficult to say," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, also pointed to 2013 as a possible deadline for the EU's military involvement in Afghanistan. "There should be a point in the not-too-distant future when we say: The time has come for Afghanistan to guarantee security for itself and build up the infrastructures needed for the state to function," Asselborn said. This doesn't mean that "2013 is the year in which we are out of Afghanistan. That's not the question. But the strategy of the pull-out plan must be concrete (by then)," Asselborn said. The ministers' comments came a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her main rival in the country's upcoming general election, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, both pointed to 2013 as the date for the start of an eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan during a televised election debate. -- SPA
