Foreign Secretary: Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. I would like to extend a very warm welcome to His Excellency Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, and His Excellency Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Secretary-General and the President are here, as you know, with delegates from 60 countries and representatives of many international organisations for the International Conference which we are holding today on Afghanistan.
It is four years ago since Afghanistan was freed from rule by the Taliban regime. In that really very short period, the Afghan people, supported by the international community and the United Nations, have achieved a huge amount. Afghanistan has a new constitution, it has held parliamentary and Presidential elections. As we heard this morning from the President, the economy is growing, human rights and basic freedoms are better respected today than they have been for at least a generation. Women, excluded from all public life by the Taliban, are now involved, being educated, at work and make up one quarter of the parliament –a higher proportion than the number of women in the United Kingdom parliament. And during my repeated visits to Afghanistan, from the dark early days straight after the war, I have been able myself to witness the huge improvements which President Karzai has led.
But no-one under-estimates the major problems which still lie in the future and which require long term commitment and investment from all involved, and that is why the United Nations and the government of Afghanistan, with the United Kingdom, are co-chairing today's conference.
The Conference set a framework for international engagement in Afghanistan over the next five years with the launch of the Afghanistan Compact. The key principle of the Compact is giving more ownership of the process of development and reconstruction to the Afghan government and people. So the Compact agreed establishes a new coordinating and monitoring mechanism in Kabul which will be co-chaired by the Afghan government and the United Nations. It will help ensure that international support for Afghanistan is used in the most effective and efficient way possible, avoiding duplication of effort and focusing on those areas which will best help the Afghan people. And I would like, if I may, to put on record my thanks to you Secretary-General for lending the United Nations' support to this important mechanism.
The Compact also includes clear benchmarks and timelines, agreed by the Afghan government, covering security, governance, institutional capacity, counter-narcotics, economic and social development. The goals which we have set are ambitious, but they are achievable, and if we reach them we will be making a real difference on the ground to the lives of many millions.
And on that note, I am pleased to confirm that today the United Kingdom has made a new pledge of £455 million sterling over the next three years to Afghanistan. In the session currently under way at Lancaster House at the conference, the Afghanistan government is presenting its Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy which sets out the political and economic plans and priorities over the next five years. Then my colleague, John Reid, will chair a session on security. And the United Kingdom's strong commitment to Afghanistan's security was underlined by Secretary Reid's announcement last week that British troops will deploy to Helmand in the south. And later this afternoon, the Afghan government will launch its up-dated national drugs control strategy. This will be a chance for nations to contribute to the newly launched Counter-Narcotics Trust Fund.
Tomorrow the conference will be focusing on governance, the rule of law and human rights, economic and social development, and aid effectiveness and co-ordination. And I think it is fair to say that the breadth and depth of the discussions here today demonstrate clearly that the international community remains strongly committed, indeed I think even more strongly than ever, to supporting the people of Afghanistan for the long term.
President Karzai: Thank you very much Your Excellency Mr. Straw, Your Excellency, Mr. Kofi Annan. It is a tremendous pleasure for Afghanistan to be in London today to celebrate the success of the past four years in the areas in which we have succeeded, and to celebrate the successful completion of the Bonn process. Today we are also very, very grateful Mr. Straw to your government, to the people of the United Kingdom, for providing us this grand opportunity of welcoming, together with you, more than 60 countries and organizations to hear Afghanistan's story and to pledge for the future success of our country.
As you mentioned, we have presented today Afghanistan's Compact which will bind Afghanistan in a commitment towards further improvement in the governance, justice and human rights of the country, and which will commit Afghanistan to provide better services for the country through the enhancement of government capacity to fight against drugs, the continuing fight against terrorism and in building state institutions. We are glad that this Compact has also been joined by the international community with us, by the United Nations with us. Afghanistan remains committed to its cooperation with the rest of the world and with the United Nations. Afghanistan is proud to be once again a member of the family of nations and a member that now is there with integrity and pride, and Afghanistan would like to continue on this road towards more success, towards prosperity and towards stronger institutionalised democracy in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan, Sirs, Excellencies, will remain to be a great asset for security in the region and the world.
And I thank you once again, Mr. Straw, for the tremendous support you have given, and for the people of the United Kingdom, for giving us this excellent opportunity to renew pledges and to look on the successful past.
SG: Thank you very much, Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall be brief.
I want to associate myself fully with what the President and the Foreign Secretary have said. I believe this is a most useful and timely conference, and the Compact is a comprehensive plan for the next stages of Afghanistan's development. As the Afghan government, under the able leadership of President Karzai and the international community, work to implement the plan, the United Nations stands fully ready to assist, as we have in the past, we will be there, on the ground, with the Afghan people. After being forced to sacrifice so much for war, the Afghan people have willingly given even more to peace. And as I said this morning, they expect a peace dividend and they deserve it.
Q: On the question of the narcotics trade in Afghanistan, can I ask Mr. Straw first of all, if the British have been charged with the eradication programme so far, why has it achieved so little success? And can I ask President Karzai, what sort of timescale do you foresee for the total eradication of the opium trade in Afghanistan?
Foreign Secretary: Let me say that I think our counter-narcotics strategy achieved a very great deal. What however is the case is the problem is more deep seated than I think anybody understood when we began this, and what we have to set against our programme and our effectiveness is where Afghanistan and the world would be if we had not been working as closely as we have been with Afghanistan and our other international partners to counter the narcotics trade. So it has been difficult, but I am in no doubt at all that our programme up to now has stopped much worse happening, and for the future should help to set Afghanistan on a much better path.
President Karzai: Sir, the narcotics trade and the poppy growing in Afghanistan is the result of three decades of desperation, where no Afghan family, no Afghan individual was sure tomorrow whether they would have their house standing, their children alive, of whether they would be staying in their villages or towns. That drove the Afghan people into desperation and desperation moved them away from the lovely orchards and vineyards they had into the poppy fields. Last year we announced to the Afghan people that poppy was against Afghanistan, and against our religion and ethics. In response to that, voluntarily 21% of the poppy fields that were grown in the past refrained from growing poppies, so we had a reduction in 21% of the poppy fields in the country. This year we are hoping to achieve the same, or close to it. But let us recognise that this is a tough fight, it is a real economic situation that we have to fight. In my view, and in the view of the United Nations that shares it with me, perhaps Afghanistan will need at least 10 years of a strong systematic consistent effort in eradication, in law enforcement and in the provision to the Afghan farmer of an alternative economy in order for us to be free of poppies by that time. So I would give it a decade, at least.
Q: I have got two questions, one for Mr. Straw and one for Mr. Karzai. It has been acknowledged all along that the lack of security is a major obstacle in Afghanistan and the Afghan government in recent months has been stressing the regional factor, but yet we haven't seen much in this conference. I wanted to know, Mr. Straw, what is your response? And Mr. Karzai, I would like to ask you, before the conference you have said, and this is the wish of the Afghan government, that if not all of the international help, but at least half of it, should go through the Afghan government, and the World Bank was also in recent documents praising the Afghan government by how much it had achieved in the last four years. Are you optimistic that this conference will be a change for that direction?
Foreign Secretary: On your first question about security, security has been a theme which has run through almost every contribution, and where there is actually a session on security which is taking place now, and it is chaired by Defence Secretary John Reid.
President Karzai: We have expressed our desire that Afghanistan should take more and more of a leadership role in the formulation and implementation of the reconstruction and enhancing the capabilities of the Afghan administration. That will be possible only when the international community channels more of its assistance through the Afghan government and other state institutions in Afghanistan. We hope that it will be taken as such recognised by the rest of the world. We saw some recognition of it today in the remarks by various countries, for which we are grateful, and the happier we will be the more they increase their assistance through the Afghan government.
Q: Foreign Secretary, and indeed President Karzai, isn't one of the key problems that no matter what the fine words that emerge from conferences like this, on the ground the Afghan people are getting a very different message. I refer only today to another American soldier being convicted for the ill-treatment and torture of Afghan prisoners at Bagram. That sends a completely mixed message, whereas conferences like this are clearly sending another message.
President Karzai: Ah well, well, well, well, well. Now convicting the soldier for committing an atrocity or misconduct is part of daily life, people get convicted, people make mistakes and they are tried and they are given their due sentence. There is a massive difference between a situation there on the ground at that microscopic level, and this massive international conference for support to Afghanistan. The Afghan people especially see the difference. They have been hoping for such a conference, a conference like this, and the support of the international community is equally the most important factor, alongside the will of the Afghan people to move forward. And these two elements have actually been the driving force for Afghanistan in the past four years that have brought us today's successful end of the Bonn conference, Bonn agreement.
Q: Inaudible.
President Karzai: I don't see that at all, no rather I see a very good message today, that too is a good message. Those who make mistakes have to be punished for it.
Foreign Secretary: If someone who has committed wrong was going unpunished, that would be one thing, what this shows is that sometimes people do commit wrongs, and then because the rule of law applies they are punished. And one of the many fundamental differences between Afghanistan today, and Afghanistan under the Taliban, is there is now a rule of law, and anybody who has been to Afghanistan just to see it, as I have done, backwards and forwards, can see the difference and the difference is huge.
Q: The military leadership in Afghanistan, is there any commitment taken from the neighbouring countries, whether that leadership will succeed in the future? You know that the main route of the insecurity in Afghanistan is all the insecure events that happen in Afghanistan. Are there any measures taken on the borders in order to prevent such insecurity measures, and if there are such commitments, why are they not implemented?
Foreign Secretary: As I understand it we have got very good interpreters …. The answer is very simple, you are asking about what are we doing to try to overcome insecurity, the whole purpose of the renewed remodelled international force, and the fact that it is now extending not just from ISAF in Kabul, but through the provincial reconstruction teams and other arrangements elsewhere across the country, is in cooperation and at the request of the Afghan government and people to work with them to enhance security, and that for example is why we are sending a really considerable contingent to Helmand in the south, precisely to assist in that endeavour.
Q: I would like to ask Mr. Karzai, in your international development strategy that has been presented by the Afghan government, there is not any specific budget. How can a strategy be implemented without a specific budget, a clear budget? If you have a budget for this, are you sure that the international community is going to commit the pledges that you require, or if you think that you are not going to be provided with the budget required, don't you think this is a flawed strategy?
President Karzai: Generally speaking Afghanistan is going to need $4 billion annually so that we can get rid of the situation created as a result of the decades of war. Today we witnessed that there have been tremendous pledges, by the United States, the UK, the EU, the World Bank, and until this afternoon we could get $5 billion, and hopefully this will increase. The question as to what is going to happen in five years time, of course we will have to see then.
Q: … Muslims, and especially Saudi Arabia, efforts in rebuilding Afghanistan?
President Karzai: My brother, we are very happy also with the help of the Muslim countries to Afghanistan. Pakistan and Iran are our two neighbours and our brothers who are helping us, so is … helping with the reconstruction of parts of the highway from Kabul to Helmand, and the United Arab Emirates is helping us with various projects of construction, and with the construction especially of an Islamic Madrassa in Kabul that we inaugurated a few days ago. We also hope that other Islamic countries will also contribute to the reconstruction of Afghanistan and in that regard we are particularly happy with our brothers in the Islamic countries.
Q: Last night the P5 spoke in unison against the nuclear programme of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At what point do you think, Mr. Secretary-General, that the United Nations will use its good offices to bring about one voice in support of the people of Iran, especially the bus drivers, over 110 of them were arrested last Saturday and their leader is still in prison, and for the homosexual rights in Iran, and for women's rights in Iran?
SG: I think it is very clear that at the United Nations our policy has been to promote human rights and rights of individuals to live in dignity and to have freedom to go about their activities. I have had the opportunity myself to intervene in some of these cases. I intervened in the case of [Akbar] Ganji, and it's an issue that I often raise when I do have an opportunity. Obviously each society has to go through changes and the pace differs from country to country. We heard a lot about [reform] in Iran under the previous President, the pace maybe has not been as fast as you would like, by the implication in your question, which is also right, but we will continue to promote these rights which are universal and should not be alien to any country, any culture and any religion.<