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PARIS, Nov 21: France said on Wednesday it would send its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, to the Indian Ocean next month in the latest step to boost its role in the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced the decision in parliament after President Jacques Chirac met key cabinet members to discuss developments in the conflict.
Jospin also called on forces that have swept the Islamic Taliban from power in much of Afghanistan to show restraint and work together to forge a representative government.
The Charles de Gaulle, based in the southern port of Toulon, is France’s only aircraft carrier and recently underwent lengthy repairs following propeller problems.
Jospin said it would move to the Indian Ocean in mid-December and lend a “European dimension” to the war now being waged primarily by US forces with British support.
One mission for the carrier group, he said, would be to help prevent the escape by sea from land-locked Afghanistan, presumably via third countries, of Osama bin Laden and other leaders of his al Qaeda network.
OBSTACLES AND DELAYS: French involvement in the campaign has so far been limited to logistical and intelligence support for military action, which began with US air strikes on October 7.
Chirac announced last Friday that eight French Mirage 2000 fighter bombers would join the effort, but France has yet to find a suitable base for them in central Asia. Jospin said negotiations were under way with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Problems have also arisen with French plans to send some 300 troops to northeast Afghanistan on a mission to secure humanitarian aid deliveries.
An advance party of 58 marines set out for Mazar-i-Sharif last week, but remained blocked in Uzbekistan on Wednesday — two days after they had been due to reach the town.
Some leaders of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which is in control of Mazar-i-Sharif, have voiced opposition to the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil.
“Everyone’s worried about it,” French Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin, said of the delay in the French deployment. He was due to fly out on a previously arranged visit to Uzbekistan and Iran later on Wednesday
“I’m going with some hope, but it’s a bit complicated because there are links between Uzbekistan, the Northern Alliance and to an extent the Russians, who are not totally foreign to the decision process there,” he told reporters.
Josselin, who plans to propose health cooperation deals to Uzbekistan as well as the other countries he visits, said the priority was the opening of a vital bridge which has long been blocked on the Uzbek frontier with Afghanistan.
“The collapse of Taliban power is a deliverance for the Afghan people. But this deliverance will not become a liberation for the Afghans unless they all have the certainty of a return to civil peace and guarantees of their rights by a representative government,” Jospin said.—Reuters
