Agence France Presse, 05 December 2005
Twelve nations agreed to prioritize cooperation on power projects to spur on destitute Afghanistan's reconstruction to help stabilize the country and undercut its massive illicit drugs trade.
The countries -- including China, India, Iran and Russia -- made the commitment in the "Kabul Declaration" on regional cooperation adopted after a two-day conference facilitated by the G8 group of industrialized nations.
The meeting was the first major regional economic conference that Afghanistan has held since emerging in 2001 from the hardline rule of the inward-looking Taliban regime that could count only three nations as friends.
The decades of war that preceded the Taliban's rise to power in 1996 destroyed the infrastructure of the central Asian nation, and much of it is still in ruins today.
The dire need for electricity was a priority at the conference with even the capital only getting a few hours of power a day and the lack of supply a major drawback for investors.
President Hamid Karzai told the opening session that Afghanistan could alone only provide power for six percent of its population and would need to import electricity for at least another 10 years.
Other priorities in the declaration were the sharing of water and facilitating trade, including by improving the road infrastructure and harmonising customs procedures.
Another priority was the fight against drugs: Afghanistan supplies more than 80 percent of the world's opium, used to make heroin, with the illicit trade making up more than half of the country's gross domestic product.
The provision of electricity, water and roads would create new jobs that would help the people of Afghanistan "earn a living beyond illicit trade in drugs," Britain's junior foreign minister Kim Howells told reporters.
Drugs barons and their private armies appear to be involved in some of the regular attacks on police and other groups linked to the government that are mostly carried out by loyalists of the Taliban, which sheltered the Al-Qaeda terror network.
A Taliban-led insurgency has claimed about 1,500 lives this year and cast a shadow over Afghanistan's moves towards democracy, a key step being an election to form the first parliament in more than 30 years that is due to sit this month.
The Kabul Declaration marked the "moment when Afghanistan has become a real player in bringing peace and stability to this region," Howells said.
It was also "an important sign to the whole world that there is great determination here not only to help Afghanistan as a nation, a country that has gone though the most terrible recent history", but also that it had become an "integral part of a fast-growing region," he said.
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Citation: "12-nation meet prioritizes power for Afghanistan," Agence France Presse, 05 December 2005.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051205/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistaneconomy&printer=1;_ylt=ArYOgO0OF09mYpWrE08g2mPuOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
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