BRUSSELS (SW): The international community pledged to support Afghanistan through 2020 and beyond at the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan in the Belgian capital on Wednesday.
The conference, co-hosted by the Afghan government and the European Union brought together 70 countries and some 30 international organizations to confer over the future of the war-ravaged country. Addressing the participants, the Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani expressed the resolve to lead the country on the path of reform, peace and prosperity.
Highlighting the recent success at the economic front, Ghani said a major Turkish company is willing to invest $ 200 million in a dam in Helmand to produce 100 megawatts of power, “'In the last 3 months alone, we have secured commitments for investment of $ 1.1 billion from the private sector”, he noted. The president went on to say that terrorism is a threat not only to Afghanistan, but also to the entire global community.
The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the gathering that the Taliban should look at the example of a deal between the Afghan government and militant commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a path to an "honorable" peace in Afghanistan.
The Brussels conference is expected to pledge more than $3 billion a year of development assistance to the Afghan government and Kerry said this was as sign that the world would stand by Afghanistan, where the United States and its allies have been battling the Taliban since 2001.
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