By Mark John
Reuters, 29 May 2007
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union experts will from next month start training police forces across Afghanistan, including southern provinces which have borne the brunt of insurgent violence, EU officials said on Tuesday.
But they gave no forecast for how many fully trained Afghan police officers they expected their small, 160-strong operation to turn out during a three-year mission starting June 17, adding its activities would depend on security and other criteria.
"We can play a very honorable role together with the U.S. police mission," EU Special Representative for Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell told a news briefing of an existing U.S. police training mission of some 500 trainers.
"We are lagging behind in the training of police."
Vendrell said some of the EU training personnel would deploy to south Afghanistan despite concerns that a spate of civilian casualties from Western military operations was turning the local population against international forces.
"That should be no reason not to have our trainers and mentors in that region," he added.
U.S. officials including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice have urged the EU to do more to help speed up training of police and other law officials needed to combat widespread corruption and the drugs trade in Afghanistan which analysts say is fuelling the insurgency.
EU capitals agreed last year to expand a 50-strong German police training operation into a full EU-led mission, but Vendrell conceded he would have liked many more than the 160 trainers which will be deployed this year.
"I would liked to have seen it at the same size as the mission in
Kosovo, but that was unrealistic," he said of the 1,500 staff the EU is gearing up to send on a similar rule of law mission if the breakaway Serb province wins independence.
Vendrell said international agencies in Afghanistan saw the need for some 82,000 Afghan police, including auxiliaries, up from the existing force tentatively estimated at 60,000.
The 23-nation mission will include personnel from non-EU nations such as Norway, Canada and Australia and will monitor police reform and offer advice at national and provincial level.
The EU officers will carry arms but will rely mainly on the
NATO-led ISAF peace force for protection. EU officials accept that could determine the range of activities the carry out.
"We must be aware that they (ISAF) can support us only within their means and capabilities," said Brigadier-General Friedrich Eichele, the German who will head the mission.
EU officials bristled at U.S. complaints last year that the bloc should do more to put the impoverished nation on its feet.
EU states make up roughly half the 30,000-plus ISAF force and since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001 have ploughed around 3.7 billion euros of aid into Afghanistan, roughly a third of all international aid.
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Citation: Mark John. "EU sees Afghan police trainers covering hotspots," Reuters, 29 May 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070529/wl_nm/afghan_eu_dc
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