ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: The possible deployment of a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan has triggered a growing debate, with the various Afghan groups, humanitarian organizations and US forces all pursuing different agendas.
The White House said on Friday it was too early to send international peacekeepers into Afghanistan because the military operations were not yet over and the situation was too “fluid and dangerous”.
“There is a war that is still underway and our objectives have not yet been achieved,” spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, adding it was also “premature” to discuss the make-up of an eventual multinational force.
“There is still a mission to be achieved; and that is the destruction of the al-Qaeda network,” added Fleischer, referring to Osama.
He said Bush “looks forward to the day when” talks in Germany to shape Afghanistan’s political future have borne fruit and “peacekeepers will be able to arrive. But that day has yet not arrived.”
The deployment of peacekeepers, possibly from the United Nations but more likely from Muslim partners in the US-led coalition against terrorism, has been a sticking point at the inter-Afghan talks in Bonn this week.
The Northern Alliance forces have steadfastly rejected pressure from other factions to relinquish responsibility for security in the Afghan capital.
Yunus Qanooni, alliance interior minister and chief negotiator at Bonn, said the anti-Taliban factions were ready to be flexible on the issue but only after broad agreement was reached on an interim government.
“At the moment there is no need for (an international force) ... although it can in principle be part of a comprehensive peace package,” he said this week. “We don’t feel the need for an outside force to bring security.”
Other Afghan factions, including some within the Northern Alliance itself, have demanded the immediate deployment of international peacekeepers, saying the alliance could not be trusted to ensure security.
The alliance, headed by UN-recognised president Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been accused of breaking agreements to stay out of the capital after the Taliban’s withdrawal, amid fears it is trying to monopolise power.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday it was not up to the United States to decide the timing or composition of any multinational force, insisting it was up to the Afghans to work out.
Rumsfeld said indigenous Afghan forces were the preferred option.
“Your first choice is to have a stable situation created by people who live there, because anything other than that is unnatural, is abnormal, out of the order of things, and it becomes a target,” Rumsfeld said.
His comments followed a report by The Washington Post that the US general in charge of the Afghan campaign, Tommy Franks, had stalled the deployment of peacekeepers due to concerns they would obstruct military operations.
One diplomat representing an ally of the United States said: “General Franks is very much in charge of everything, and he doesn’t want to worry about a multinational force.”
Britain, Canada, France, Jordan and Turkey have prepared troops to participate in humanitarian aid operations ahead of the onset of the harsh Afghan winter.
Aid groups have warned that hundreds of thousands of Afghans could starve this winter unless food and other relief can reach them in remote areas where security cannot be guaranteed.
Fears for the safety of foreigners have been heightened by the deaths of eight journalists in Afghanistan last month.
“Whoever is brought in on the ground in Afghanistan who will make the job not only of the UN but of our NGO (non-governmental organisations) partners more easy, we will welcome them,” World Food Programme spokeswoman Lindsey Davies said Saturday.—AFP