Downing Street Says » Afghanistan

Asked about the Foreign Secretary’s speech on Afghanistan and put that the inclusion of the Taliban in the reconciliation process would inevitably result in a changed constitution in Afghanistan, which would make it less democratic, the PMS said that people would have to wait for the Foreign Secretary’s speech for the detail, but he would be talking about the importance of having a political strategy alongside the military strategy. There was no suggestion that a political settlement was an alternative to the military effort: quite the reverse. This was in keeping with General McChrystal’s strategy, which was set out earlier in the year.

Put that there had been reports that officials were disappointed with the political reconciliation plan that President Karzai presented to the conference in January, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had always made clear that there were two parts to this; setting out what it was that President Karzai needed to achieve in governance, and secondly, holding him to account. The January conference was a significant step forward and the first time that President Karzai had addressed the international community.

Asked what the Prime Minister’s reaction was to the coroner’s comments in the case of the inquest into the death of four soldiers in Afghanistan, the PMS said that the Prime Minister echoed the statement that Bill Rammell made this morning and his thoughts, as always, were with the families of those who had lost their lives. The Coroner had raised a number of serious issues, and the MoD would consider these carefully before responding. It was worth remembering that there was significant investment that went into, and continued to go into, tackling the problem of IEDs.

Asked if the Prime Minister saw a contradiction between what he had said at the Iraq inquiry on Defence spending and what the coroner had said about equipment, the PMS said that if you looked at the expenditure that had been made on vehicles you would see that everything was being done to ensure that we put the right amount of resources into tackling IEDs in Afghanistan. We had to be able to change our resources operationally to deal with the changing nature of the threat.

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» Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Afghanistan

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