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Brown and Merkel call for Afghanistan conference
7 Sep 2009Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have called for an international conference on the future of Afghanistan to be held before the end of this year.
The conference is intended to bring together the newly-elected Afghan Government with Nato, the United Nations and other key players in the multinational mission in the country to map out a detailed strategy for 2010.
Speaking alongside Mrs Merkel at a press conference in Berlin, Mr Brown said the conference should focus on security, governance and development in Afghanistan as well as securing the necessary funding and giving homegrown police, security forces and civic institutions a greater role in delivering them
The gathering is expected to be hosted by the UN and London and Kabul have been mooted as possible venues.
But preparations may be delayed by continued uncertainty over the results of the elections in Afghanistan, where electoral officials said that they had thrown out results from almost 450 polling stations because of allegations of fraud.
President Hamid Karzai was reported to be edging closer to the 50% threshold needed to secure a fresh mandate without facing a second-round run-off, but supporters of his main rival Abdullah Abdullah claim that his tally has been inflated by ballot boxes stuffed with tens of thousands of votes.
Mr Brown said: "The high-level conference that we that we propose in Afghanistan is one that should meet before the end of the year. It should deal with the issues of security, governance and development...
"We both support a conference which would bring together the next Afghan government, the UN, Nato and the key contributing countries to look ahead at the next phase of our mission in three areas - security, development and governance - and see how the Afghan people, its army, police force and civic institutions can play a bigger role in the future, and to ensure that our strategy is properly supported by the resources that are needed to deliver it."
Mr Brown and Mrs Merkel also discussed the preparations for the summit of leaders of the G20 group of major economies due to take place in Pittsburgh later this month.
G20 finance ministers meeting in London yesterday to pave the way for Pittsburgh agreed that anti-recessionary fiscal stimulus packages should remain in place until recovery is assured.
Following today's talks, Mr Brown said: "The message of the last 12 months, from Germany and the UK and the rest of the world is that the world can and did come together to prevent economic collapse and to prevent what could have been a second Great Depression.
"We now need to come together again with heightened co-operation to ensure that the recovery - which is fragile and not automatic - is not put at risk.
"We need heightened co-operation also to meet the long-term challenge of durable growth and employment."
Reader views (3)
Yet another matter that needs urgent attention is kicked into the long grass by this poor excuse for a Prime Minister. I'm surprised at Merkel being suckered into this charade that is adopted all too frequently by Brown and there must now be countless reviews in progress that Brown has instigated to avoid making any decisions.
The sooner this idiot Brown goes, the better for the whole world.
- Bingham Macnamara, lymington, hampshire, 07/09/2009 13:24
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How's this for an idea: Brown and all his flunkies stay at home and teleconference. The money thereby saved on flights, hotels, etc., is used to buy decent kit for the troops.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark, 07/09/2009 08:57
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Yet more showboating from bottler Brown; a truly comic figure - like a man who's just lit an exploding cigar.
- Ted, London, 07/09/2009 07:53
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