Transcripts
Ambassador Neumann discusses Afghanistan Policy with Media in Astana
U.S. Embassy
Astana, Kazakhstan
May 25, 2007
Ambassador Neumann: -- the foreign ministry parking lot. So I apologize that our time is a little bit shorter than planned, but I will do my best to answer your questions. How would you like to start?
Question: Could you please tell us about the objectives of your visit?
Ambassador Neumann: Yes. I have been Ambassador in Afghanistan for almost two years. I was asked by the State Department to come to several Central Asian states – to here, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan – to give my impressions of the situation in Afghanistan and to answer questions that governments might have about the situation.
Obviously what happens in Afghanistan has a strategic importance to all of Central Asia. There is a lot of progress in Afghanistan, but there is also still a difficult situation. After 25 years of war, you do not put a country back together quickly. However, what I have told all the governments is that in the military situation there is progress. In eastern Afghanistan where we’ve had most of the American forces there is a lot of progress. I think one of the proofs of progress is that no journalist is writing any stories about that. They only want to write stories about two or three provinces in the south where the fighting is heading. But in the south there is also progress.
It is important to think about the questions people were asking last year and the questions people are asking this year because the difference is also important. Last year people asked if NATO coming in and taking over meant that the Americans were going to leave, but instead we have increased our forces, and we now have an American general who is commanding the NATO forces.
Also, many people asked last year whether NATO could fight or whether NATO would be broken by having to fight in Afghanistan. However, NATO has in fact fought well. British, Canadian, Dutch, Romanian forces have all been engaged in the south. And areas that we were fighting in last year are fairly quiet this year. Now the fighting is more in Helmand.
But the effort in Afghanistan goes beyond NATO. Small countries in NATO are playing a role. Lithuania, which is a very small country, is running one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams with forces from Croatia and Iceland also helping. Australia and New Zealand have forces in Afghanistan. Korea is helping in the development. Japan is one of the largest donors. A great many nations have dedicated themselves to succeeding in Afghanistan and not letting terrorism return. But it is a very difficult situation. There is a lot of political reform that the government of Afghanistan still has to do. There is a lot of economic development that needs to take place in order to meet the expectations of the Afghan people. Those are all the things I came to talk about.
Question: Could you please tell us more in detail about the officials that you’ve met here in Kazakhstan and what questions they asked of you.
Ambassador Neumann: Do you have my schedule? Just in the interest of time, why don’t you read it out because you’ll read it faster than I will. They’ve asked me about all the things I’ve just told you about.
Question: What is the exact amount of aid that the United States provides to the people of Afghanistan? Because that money comes from the budget of the American people. Also the United States will have to leave Afghanistan eventually, so do you have any prognosis as to when this might happen?
Ambassador Neumann: On the second, what we have said and believe is that we will leave when the Afghans tell us they want us to leave. Particularly Afghanistan now has an elected parliament and an elected president. We look to them. Right now everyone is telling us we should stay. That the situation is too fragile for the international coalition to leave.
I don’t remember clearly exactly how much we have spent up to now, but the proposal before Congress is $14.8 billion. That does not count any money for the support or maintenance of our own forces. That is exclusively money for economic development in Afghanistan and for building the new Afghan Army and the Afghan Police. I spent the last two weeks before I came on this trip talking to Members of Congress, and the support in Congress is very strong, it’s equally strong in the Democrats and the Republicans. It’s not a domestic issue for us.
Question: Are you planning on asking for Central Asian assistance in your reconstruction effort in Afghanistan? I don’t believe that your purpose for coming here was just to appraise our decision makers and our political leaders of the situation in Afghanistan.
Ambassador Neumann: The decision about whether or not any of your country or the other Central Asian countries will help is, of course, their decision to make. They’re sovereign countries. But a lot of the discussion is about whether we agree that there is a common danger and a common purpose to helping Afghanistan.
We are not asking countries to help us, help America. We are asking them to look at whether their own interests make it important for them to help Afghanistan.
The framework for helping Afghanistan is the agreement reached in London in January 2006 which was a big international conference and reached broad international agreement. Not just us, not just the Western powers. Iran was there, Russia was there, China was there, and we all agreed to the London Compact.
There are some 40 specific goals in that London Compact which are drawn, taken from the much larger number of economic goals in the Economic Development Plan of Afghanistan. The central coordinating role between the donors for that program is played by the United Nations.
So yes, I would discuss, have discussed how nations might work together to support Afghanistan in the framework of a plan for economic development which is designed with the Afghan government and which is supported by over 60 nations that signed that compact. So I’m glad you asked that question.
Question: Did you get any positive responses from the countries that you visited? Is Kazakhstan willing to help? And the same goes with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Are they willing to help? So what is Kazakhstan, for example, offering for the reconstruction of Afghanistan?
Ambassador Neumann: Kazakhstan is looking at this, but you need to understand one basic thing. It’s very bad manners for one government to speak about what another government might do until that government decides. So once they make decisions we’ll be very happy to talk about them, especially if they’re decisions we like. But they have to make their own decisions before we can talk about them.
But there are already some things. For instance Kazakhstan helps by letting planes from many NATO nations come across its airspace. Kyrgyzstan is already helping by allowing commercial airplanes to land at Manas so the troops’ supplies can be taken on into Afghanistan.
Question: When you visited Kyrgyzstan one of the issues that were raised probably was the situation around the military base in Ganci. I know that the parliament of Kyrgyzstan is insisting that this base be closed. That’s probably something that you talked about. What were your arguments that you brought to the government of Kyrgyzstan.
Ambassador Neumann: First of all, let me clarify. The parliament is holding hearings. There is not one view in the parliament. There is a lot of discussion, some of which is really about the base and some of which is a way of having political attacks and support in Kyrgyzstan.
But basically I talked about two things. One is the ways that we are improving our procedures, our way of working with the Kyrgyz authorities so that the troubles we have had will not happen again. The second was to ask people to think about their larger strategic interest and the strategic danger they will face if Afghanistan becomes a major source of instability in the middle of Central Asia.
Question: Did you talk about raising the rent again for the use of that military installation in Ganci?
Ambassador Neumann: I did not specifically talk about that.
Question: Does American and [inaudible] NATO presence in Afghanistan have any kind of positive impact on the drug situation in Afghanistan, or the growing of opium and its transport? And if the answer is positive, then maybe you can give us a percentage to which the situation has improved due to American presence.
Ambassador Neumann: I don’t think the situation has improved very much. I think this is a very tough problem.
There are really two situations. In the north, we do have improvement. Last year six provinces had no poppy. This year we think it will be either 10 or 12 provinces with no poppy. But at the same time the production has gone up so much in one province in the south, in Helmand, that the overall production has not gone down.
What we think we see from this is where there is no insurgency and where the government begins to have authority, then we begin to have some success with the policy of controlling the poppy. Where there is a lot of fighting, where there is no control, it is extremely difficult. The problem can get worse.
I think we can make some more progress next year. I think this problem is going to take many years. Every country that has had this problem has taken many years to deal with it. But I think this is also a strategic interest. When countries in Central Asia look at Afghanistan they need to think about the fact that if the country becomes stable there is a chance of getting the drug problem under control. If the country does not become stable, and if the war is lost, then you will deal with more drugs in your own country.
This is what I mean when I say it’s not just about foreign pressure on Kazakhstan or anybody else to help. It’s a matter of your own countries, your own government looking at the strategic interests, looking at the threat that they have to deal with from terrorism, from narcotics, if the situation in Afghanistan does not improve. It is their own strategic interest that we hope leads them to being involved.
I’m going to do one more question. I’m sorry that I’m going to have to run off, but I have a plane to catch and it won’t wait for me.
Question: Can you please tell us in terms of percentages, what percentage of the overall Afghan territories can fall by American and NATO forces as of today? You also mentioned, it’s an open secret that in the spring and the fall there is an increase in terrorist activity. So do you expect because of these some kind of terrorist acts to be committed in Afghanistan in the near future? And also what is the number of your forces in Afghanistan? American forces in Afghanistan? How strong is the American --
Ambassador Neumann: The total allied NATO forces in Afghanistan is now I think about 36,000. About 24,000-25,000, something like that, is American. It changes a little bit. You take one battalion out, you put another one back, sometimes the size [changes]. I would also say this is only about 10 percent of the size of the forces that fought in the Soviet period which I think also shows that we are still much more welcome.
I don’t think you can talk very much about percentage of control when you’re fighting an insurgency because the issue is whether people are secure and whether government can function. Basically what you usually see when you look at Afghanistan is across the north, the west and the center, there is very very little fighting, and there are very few foreign forces. But there are not yet very many Afghan forces. So the problem in those areas, the problems are problems of crime, of drugs, and of a weak government that has to be helped to grow stronger.
In the eastern provinces where there was a lot of fighting three years ago, there is now only a small amount of fighting. There are still small ambushes and there are some suicide bombs. There is no big fighting in those areas except right on the border.
The big offensive last year was in the south. This year, two, almost three months ago one major Taliban leader named Abdullah Lang, gave an interview in which he said there would be a big offensive this spring. He said they would take all of Helmand Province. He said they would take the capital of Helmand, and he said they would expand from there. They have not taken the capital. NATO forces have now taken back several district centers that were controlled by the Taliban in that area. We are building a major electrical project and road project in the center of Helmand that has begun work, and we’ve killed Abdullah Lang.
There is still an insurgency in Helmand. I am not trying to tell you that this war is finished. But clearly we are making some progress and the Afghan government is making progress. Afghan government forces are taking a role both in the fighting and in securing the areas that are taken. That’s the best answer I can give you.