MONITORING (SW) – NATO will remain in Afghanistan despite the US announcement of reduction in troops, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the 66th Annual Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
In his remarks, Stoltenberg said the Alliance cannot risk Afghanistan becoming once more a platform for international terrorists to plan and organise attacks, and cannot let ISIS rebuild in Afghanistan the terror caliphate it lost in Syria and Iraq.
“Therefore we will address NATO’s future presence in Afghanistan at our next Defence Ministers meeting in February. We will be faced with a difficult choice. Either stay – and pay the price of a continued military engagement. Or leave – and risk that the gains we have made are lost. And that the peace process falters. This is not the time to conclude. But we have to remember that we went into Afghanistan together. And when the time is right, we should leave together, in a coordinated way”, he said.
The NATO Secretary General said there are less than 11,000 troops in the training and advice mission. “The US has not decided to withdraw to leave Afghanistan, what the US has decided is to reduce their number of troops from 4500 to 2500. At the same time, the US has made it absolutely clear and our military commanders have confirmed that they will maintain enablers as the support, especially aviation support helicopter, support fixed wing and rotary wing support to the NATO missions”.
Based on the agreement between the US and Taliban, all international troops should be out of Afghanistan by the first of May. Stoltenberg said the Alliance would review if the Taliban have met the conditions of this agreement. “And therefore we need to then decide whether we think the time has come to leave Afghanistan, risking that we can lose the gains we have made, including risking that Taliban will be back controlling the country. And of course that ISIS can also gain ground and try to reestablish the caliphate, the terror caliphate that they lost in Iraq and Syria, they will try to reestablish that in Afghanistan. Or we can stay. But then, of course, we will be involved”, he added.
ENDS
