Afghanistan is at risk of collapse if a security agreement with the United States is not signed by the end of the year, officials from two Nato countries warned last night.
The violence and chaos that has resurged across Iraq after the exit of foreign troops three years ago could flare up in Afghanistan should Kabul and Washington fail to finalise the bilateral security pact, they said.
The pact is needed for US and other Nato forces to remain in the country from next year in support of the Afghan police and army, they cautioned.
Latvia and Estonia, which have contributed forces to Nato’s operation in Afghanistan, made the warning as Nato members pledged to commit money and troops to advise and train the Afghan security forces, provided that the security pact was signed.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary-general of Nato, said that “time was running short” for the Afghan government to put in place a legal framework that would enable Nato’s new training mission, dubbed Resolute Support, to take place.
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“Without a signature, there can be no mission,” he said after a meeting in Wales of Nato leaders and the heads of partner countries that also have forces in Afghanistan.
Raimonds Vejonis, Latvia’s defence minister, said that the absence of the security pact was the single biggest concern among Nato states about Afghanistan.
“We had a stable situation in Iraq but now it has so quickly changed,” he told The Times on the sidelines of the two-day summit at Celtic Manor, in Newport, south Wales. “The situation can be repeated again in Afghanistan if Nato is not present.”
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