Miliband warns over Afghan pull-out

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Mr Miliband, who visited Afghanistan last week with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, warned that the country would fail if the international community pulled out.

He stressed it was in the UK's national interest to be in Afghanistan and said British troops and diplomats were making a difference on a daily basis.

But the country would become a failed state if the international community withdrew. A pull-out would "precipitate even more dangerous insecurity", he added.

Mr Miliband was responding to comments on Sunday by Lord Ashdown, who said the country was already a failed state. The former Liberal Democrat leader warned that time was running out for the country and asked if the international community was "losing the battle".

Lord Ashdown spoke out following his rejection last month for the post of UN envoy for Afghanistan by the country's president, Hamid Karzai.

"I think Afghanistan is a failed state, I don't think it is on the edge of it," he told the BBC. "The question is: Are we on the edge of losing this battle?"

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday that if other countries did not contribute to the mission it could eventually "destroy" Nato. Mr Gates warned against a two-tiered alliance of those "who are willing to fight and those who are not".

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Miliband said: "I think that Lord Ashdown said in his interview that when he was first approached for the job three or four months ago he didn't know whether progress could be made but he concluded that it was possible.

"There are big challenges, a big test for the international community, a big test also for the Afghan government, but I think we are both sober about the challenges there but also determined in the belief that it is important that we are there to make a difference. Without the international presence then Afghanistan certainly would be a failed state."