KABUL, Dec 9: The United Nations will need at least two-and-a-half years to help get war-shattered Afghanistan back on its feet but will keep a backseat role — unlike in Kosovo and East Timor, a senior UN official said Sunday.

“We are designing a mission which will support the Afghan government. We’re not doing what we have been doing in recent years in Kosovo and East Timor, where effectively the UN had an executive, administrative role,” said Martin Barber, from the UN’s peacekeeping operations in New York.

“This is going to be very, very different. We want to stress the importance that the Afghans have the capacity to run their country,” added the official, in Kabul at the head of a team sent to lay the groundwork for the mission.

Under the historic Bonn power-sharing accord last Wednesday, the United Nations has been tasked with leading international efforts to restore Afghanistan, which has been devastated by 23 years of war.

Among its objectives are to help re-establish a proper functioning police, judiciary, civil service and central bank, assist in drafting a new constitution and conduct voter registration and a national census.

“The UN is going to be busy. We are awaiting formal instructions from the (UN) security council to start up these activities,” said Barber.

However, the official stressed that the international body wanted to avoid a dominant role, as in the UN-administered Serbian province of Kosovo and the former Indonesian territory of East Timor, also under UN control.

“We will try our best to have a light footprint, that means that we will have a small number of highly qualified staff assisting the Afghan government in key areas,” he said.

His 17-strong team had experts in communications, aviation, logistics and finance that were examining the technical requirements for the UN mission in Afghanistan.

It also included military, police, judicial and public information specialists.

Barber said he expected the UN mission to last at least two-and-half-years, after which elections are due to be held in Afghanistan.

Under the Bonn accord, a 30-member power-sharing authority led by Pakhtoon royalist Hamid Karzai is to govern Afghanistan for six months.

A council of tribal elders, or Loya Jirga, will then be held to appoint a transitional administration that will have a two-year mandate ahead of nationwide elections.—AFP