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Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero says the Western countries with troops in Afghanistan should establish a "reasonable horizon" for transferring responsibility for security to Afghan forces.
18.11.09 - 12:23 -
Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero says the Western countries with troops in Afghanistan should establish a "reasonable horizon" for transferring responsibility for security to Afghan forces.
"None of the countries that has a military presence there regards the project of Afghanistan as a conquest," he said in an interview with Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera broadcast on Wednesday as the Spanish leader began a Mideast tour.
Zapatero said the nations with soldiers in Afghanistan are anxious for the Afghans to take charge of their own security and economic development as soon as possible.
Spain, one of 40 countries that have sent soldiers to Afghanistan, recently decided to add another 220 personnel, bringing its total contingent to around 1,300.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has expanded by some 10,000 troops over the past 18 months and "a political consensus exists to evaluate the result of that increase," the Socialist prime minister told Al Jazeera.
Contending that the upsurge in violence in Afghanistan was linked to the August elections, Zapatero said governments involved in the mission have agreed among themselves "not to open a new period of troop increases."
And he rejected the interviewer's suggestion that Madrid boosted its contribution to ISAF to strengthen ties with Washington, recalling that he supported then-Prime Minister José María Aznar's decision to send Spanish troops to Afghanistan in 2001.
"I voted in favour and have always been in favour", he said, contrasting his position on Afghanistan with his staunch opposition to Spanish participation in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
A month after upsetting Aznar's conservatives in the March 2004 general elections, Zapatero kept a campaign promise by recalling the troops from Iraq.
The prime minister insisted that the international mission in Afghanistan is threefold: establishing security; training Afghan forces, and fostering development.
"We know the military presence generates much debate and much controversy in the Islamic world, the Arab world, but we must emphasize that that presence, besides being military, is being a presence of aid and development," Zapatero said.
The premier arrived on Wednesday in Syria, the beginning of a Mideast tour that will also take him to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, where Spanish troops are serving with a U.N. peacekeeping force.
