UK says strong Afghan forces key to settlement

Watch CNBC-TV18 live only on MYTV >>

Any Afghan settlement involving the Taliban will depend on building strong government forces able to handle security, Britain said on Thursday as ministers from 60 countries met to hammer out a strategy to end the war.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said building up those forces would require foreign backing for more than a decade.

The London conference is expected to back efforts to win over Taliban foot soldiers with money and jobs and review a UN terrorism blacklist to encourage fighters to change sides.

This, combined with a fresh commitment to development and the influx of an extra 30,000 US troops, is meant to break a stalemate in a war now into its ninth year.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC any effort to reintegrate insurgents could only work if Afghanistan's own army and police were strong enough to take charge of security from international forces. That would be a gradual process, he said.

"The first thing is to strengthen the Afghan forces, and then to weaken the Taliban by dividing them," he said.

"You cannot have a situation where you are making advances to those people who are prepared to renounce violence and join the democratic process and say they will have nothing more to do with the activities thay have been involved with in the past unless you have a strong Afghan army and police."

Western governments are hoping a final military and civilian push will put them in a position of strength to begin withdrawing troops in 2011 and negotiate a political settlement.

With public opinion wearying of war, attention is already turning to an eventual exit strategy involving a political settlement with the Taliban leadership -- although officials stress that this is not yet on the cards.

"We are not going to negotiate with the Taliban now, and if there's going to be any movement on this issue, the Taliban will have to sever all contact with al Qaeda and this is a critical point," US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said any reconciliation with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was "probably a bridge too far" after he gave safe haven to al Qaeda to launch the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"He has the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands," he told reporters in Washington.

15 years of support
Karzai is expected to seek support in London both for a plan to win over foot soldiers -- something that has had little success in the past -- and to hold a Loya Jirga, a council of elders to discuss broader reconciliation.

Afghanistan would require foreign backing for years to come, the president said.

"With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security fovcces, 5-10 years will be enough," he told the BBC.

"With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide four our forces, the time may be extended to 10-15 years."

The Taliban have so far shown no willingness in public to enter peace talks, though some analysts say they too are tired of the fighting and realise they are no better placed than the United States and its allies to win power by military means alone.

The Taliban, in comments posted on one of their websites on Wednesday, renewed a demand that foreign troops leave Afghanistan and dismissed plans to win over individual fighters as a trick.

But they also repeated a statement made by Mullah Omar late last year that they posed no threat to the West -- a possible signal of a greater willingness to break with al Qaeda.

The Taliban ruled in Kabul from 1996 until US-led forces toppled them after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the war has intensified in the past year, with more than twice as many US troops being killed in 2009 than in 2008.

Britain is hoping to use the conference to convince regional players to cooperate rather than compete over Afghanistan, a battleground for proxy wars for 30 years.

Among those attending are the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, which have long competed for influence in Afghanistan.