NATO agreed Friday to begin handing over control of Afghanistan to the Afghan government this year, a process that if successful would enable President Barack Obama to meet his target date of July 2011 for starting to bring US troops home. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the 28-nation alliance is on track with its new strategy for winding down the war in Afghanistan, despite security setbacks and a continuing shortage of foreign trainers for the fledgling Afghan police and army. He said a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, including US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, agreed on what it will take to create conditions enabling Afghans to assume control of their own country. He was not specific about what those conditions will be, but said progress in that direction is important in order to avoid further erosion of public support for the war effort. “Where it occurs, the transition must be not just sustainable but irreversible,” Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference at the conclusion of the two-day meeting. In earlier remarks, Fogh Rasmussen offered a mostly upbeat assessment to the gathering. “Increasingly this year the momentum will be ours,” he said. Fogh Rasmussen asserted that the Afghan government, which has been hampered by a Taliban insurgency, political corruption, a dysfunctional economy and a dependence on foreign assistance, is starting to take more responsibility for running the country's affairs. “We are preparing to begin the process of handing over leadership, where conditions allow, back to the Afghan people,” he said. “The future of this mission is clear and visible: more Afghan capability and more Afghan leadership.” During Friday's meeting, which was closed to the press after Fogh Rasmussen made brief introductory remarks, Clinton was expected to press other NATO nations to provide more trainers for Afghanistan's police and military forces as part of preparations to withdraw Western troops from there by summer 2011. Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that an additional 450 trainers are needed for Afghanistan's security forces. Insufficient numbers of foreign trainers has plagued the US-led war effort for years, although the shortfall has narrowed in recent months. Friday's session also was focusing on a NATO initiative aimed at stimulating the Afghan economy by making it a priority for all foreign contingents operating in Afghanistan to hire Afghan contractors and purchase Afghan goods and services whenever possible.
