MELBOURNE, Feb 13 – Australia will be able to determine its military contribution to Afghanistan post-2014 only after the United States
makes up its mind. Defence Minister Stephen Smith says the government is about to start the conversation with NATO, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the US on Australia’s role next year and beyond 2014.
As NATO secretary general Anders Rasmussen had acknowledged, the US needed to outline the proposed scale of its drawdown and its post-2014 plans, the Australian Associated Press reprots Smith as saying.
“What the United States and Afghanistan agree … is the starting point,” Smith said in a speech to the Australian Defence Magazine congress in Canberra on Tuesday.
“Once that is clearer, then Australia and other NATO/ISAF countries will be able to make a judgment about what role, if any, others, including Australia, might play.”
Central to that will be how many US troops and what equipment will remain in Afghanistan.
Smith said US President Barack Obama could give some indication of the administration’s stance in his state of the union speech on Wednesday
afternoon. The government has foreshadowed a likely reduced military commitment to Afghanistan after the majority of troops are withdrawn.
That could involve assisting with training at the new UK-run Afghan National Army officer training academy. Some special forces could remain in a
counter-terrorist role, subject to an appropriate mandate. Smith said Australia had committed A$100 million-a-year for three years from 2015 to support the Afghan National Security Forces beyond the withdrawal of western forces.
The taskforce in Afghanistan was now in the process of removing equipment from Afghanistan but there would not be any substantial reduction in
troop numbers until late in the year.
BERNAMA
