Итоги конференции в Бонне: "вывод" оккупационного контингента США и НАТО из Афганистана задержится - на 10 лет! At Conference, Afghans Say They’ll Need Aid for Years, The New York Times

06.12.2011

The New York Times, December 5, 2011

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ROD NORDLAND

BONN, Germany — As dozens of nations and organizations met here on Monday to plan a transition beyond the withdrawal of American and other international forces from Afghanistan in 2014, the Afghan government had a new deadline in mind: 2024.

President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials here called for political and military support for at least another decade — and financial assistance that would not end until 2030. That would be nearly three decades after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that led to the international intervention in Afghanistan.

While Mr. Karzai and others celebrated the strides made in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban — 60 percent of Afghans now have cellphones, he said, compared with none in 2001 — the conference underscored the multiple challenges facing a government undermined by corruption and threatened by a tenacious insurgency.

“We will need your steadfast support for at least another decade,” Mr. Karzai said, addressing leaders here at a conference held on the 10th anniversary, to the day, of talks in Bonn that established the political foundation for a new government in Afghanistan.

The conference, in the works for months, fell considerably short of the objectives that officials had envisioned. It had been viewed as a milestone that would cement progress in ending the war, both politically and militarily, and lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining Afghan government after 2014.

Instead, the mood was subdued, if not gloomy. The tempo of the war has shown little sign of winding down, despite an upbeat assessment from NATO commanders in October.

Efforts by the United States to negotiate a strategic agreement on relations with Afghanistan, like the one that now governs relations with Iraq, also have been complicated by a number of troublesome issues. Those include night raids by Special Forces and the transfer of prisoners to the custody of Afghans in spite of an abysmal record on treatment of detainees. The two countries cannot even agree on what to call the agreement.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has touted the creation of a New Silk Road to knit together the nations of Central and South Asia by easing trade barriers and creating economic opportunities among Afghanistan’s neighbors. And while the Bonn conference was intended to showcase the strategy, the most significant neighbor, Pakistan, refused to attend in protest over theAmerican airstrikes that that killed 24 of its soldiers along the border last month.

President Obama and Mrs. Clinton pressed their Pakistani counterparts to reconsider their boycott in telephone calls over the week, to no avail.

“The entire region has a stake in Afghanistan’s future and much to lose if the country again becomes a source of terrorism and instability,” Mrs. Clinton told the delegates here, who included dozens of foreign ministers. “And that is why we could, of course, have benefited from Pakistan’s contribution to this conference.”

Another neighbor did attend: Iran. Its foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, sat behind Mrs. Clinton as she spoke, though neither she nor other officials had any formal contact with the Iranians here. Mr. Karzai later teased Mrs. Clinton, saying the Iranians were “your friends” and that their speech had been kind.

(In fact, Mr. Salehi denounced the international military operation, though in perhaps milder terms than before. “Certain Western countries seek to extend their military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014 by maintaining their military bases there,” he said, in remarks carried by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency. “We deem such an approach to be contradictory to efforts to sustain stability and security in Afghanistan.”)

Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, accompanied Mrs. Clinton in her meeting with Mr. Karzai. He referred to Mr. Salehi’s remarks, saying to Mr. Karzai, “Mr. President, you call that kind?”

The conference, though far from Afghanistan, was, officially, led by Mr. Karzai’s government. It was held in the former Parliament building of West Germany. Across the Rhine protesters erected shiny letters spelling “End the War in Afghanistan.”

Mrs. Clinton, echoing several other ministers, reiterated the Obama administration’s view that there was no purely military solution to the conflict. Still, new efforts to encourage reconciliation with the Taliban — which also rely on Pakistani cooperation — appear moribund, especially since the assassination in September of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a senior Afghan official leading the reconciliation process, by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban peace emissary. Even though President Obama and other NATO leaders have created a timetable for withdrawal by 2014, many officials worry about security and the stability of Mr. Karzai’s government once foreign troops leave. It could also have a devastating effect on Afghanistan’s struggling economy, which has come to depend on NATO spending.

Mr. Karzai’s government presented a paper at the conference, warning that the withdrawal could halve the country’s gross domestic product.

It said the government needed $10 billion in 2015 to cover the shortfall. Just meeting the cost of Afghan military forces — which by 2014 are expected to total 400,000 soldiers — is estimated at $3.5 billion to $6 billion a year.

“Afghanistan’s fiscal gap is significant,” the paper said in what amounted to a plea for continued financial assistance, “and unless it is addressed the good work of the past 10 years will come undone.”

The conference was not intended to solicit financial pledges from the nations attending, and none were offered, despite pleas from Mr. Karzai and other officials.

Mrs. Clinton did announce that the United States would once again resume payments to an Afghan reconstruction fund. Those payments, which amount to $650 million to $700 million a year, were halted after the International Monetary Fund raised questions about a scandal surrounding Kabul Bank, one of the country’s largest financial institutions.

Speaker after speaker — including Mr. Karzai — described corruption and poor governance as obstacles to the country’s development, factors that have caused reluctance among many countries about sending aid, especially given the economic crises in Europe and the United States.

“Billions of dollars have been spent in Afghanistan,” Sayed Rahim Sattar, the head of the Afghan N.G.O.’s. Coordination Bureau, told Mrs. Clinton during a roundtable discussion with members of civic groups, “but unfortunately, the expectations of the people have not been met.”

Steven Lee Myers reported from Bonn and Rod Nordland from Kabul, Afghanistan. Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul.