Kabul, 19 August 2008
UNAMA: Salaam alaikum. Good morning everyone and a warm welcome to this UNAMA press conference. Our speaker, Kai Eide, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan, needs no further introduction.
SRSG KAI EIDE: Thank you very much. We have not met for a while, so I thought it was time to get together and talk. I have been visiting New York and Brussels last week for the General Assembly and I will go back to deliver the report to the Security Council later this week. In fact, the presentation will be on Tuesday next week, then a stop over in Washington for a day. So, I thought it will be good to present to you some of my views at this stage.
Can I just take as a point of departure a day when I was unfortunately not here - 21 September which was International Peace Day. I think we worked quite hard on that day in fact - to ensure that there was a commitment by everybody to respect International Peace Day. And you saw the appeal by the President and you saw the commitment by the national and international forces and you saw the commitment by the Taliban. And yes, there were some incidents - but by and large those commitments were respected.
And I consider that to be a great success. It enabled hundreds of activities to take place around the country in way that captured the mood of the Afghan public. It also allowed us to carry out our vaccination programmes for 1.6 million children. We hoped to reach 1.8 [million], but 1.6 is not a bad figure. I think it is a success - and with six more rounds of vaccinations, we can make this country polio-free. And we need one thing - we need access. And therefore again I appeal to everyone to ensure that we have such access.
Now is the time to expand the humanitarian agenda together. We are now in the process [of delivering assistance] and will be in this process over the next weeks and months to ensure that food is available across the country to those who need it most.
I would like to underline that this is not a political effort - this is not a hearts-andminds effort - it is a purely neutral humanitarian effort. And therefore we should build on the success of the polio vaccination campaign. We should all, and I repeat all, come together to ensure that food reaches those who need it most.
I will take this opportunity to appeal to the Taliban and to appeal to their leaders to ensure access for food distribution and to expand the humanitarian agenda that we should share. There are disagreements on so many things. But let us demonstrate that we can share this humanitarian agenda.
My second issue - is that there are so many pessimistic voices out there. There are those who talk about failure and those who have been talking about failure for years and will continue in future to talk about failure. None of us can deny that there are very serious problems and none of us can deny that the security situation has deteriorated. But I am sick and tired of pessimistic voices. Following the talks I had in New York - I must say the commitment remains as strong as it has ever been in the international community. There is a commitment to turn negative trends around.
Following my talks with President Karzai as late as yesterday, I know that he is committed to the same. So we must all use the months we have left [this year] to build positive trends, to turn negative trends around and to build confidence in what we are doing. Part of that means returning to the Paris agenda. I think we have been distracted form the Paris agenda over the past few months - but we must return to that.
That is where the Afghan priorities were set and the commitments of the international community were set. We have made some progress, but we need to accelerate that work. Much of this work is work that is not done overnight - they are processes that take time. Let me just mention a few things that are important in order to enable us to move forward.
We have set up the implementation strategy for the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and it is agreed by the Afghan Government and the international community. We have set up a new coordination structure around the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB) and it has started to work more effectively and is more results-oriented.
We have agreed on the expansion of the Afghan National Army. We have clarified issues that were not so clear with regard to the Afghan Social Outreach Programme - and it has the international community's full support. We are working on the joint audit system that President Karzai wanted in order to be able to follow more closely what happens with all the aid resources both from the international side and the Afghan side.
We are looking at how we can best support the new anti-corruption agency. And we will have to look now - at how can we proceed more quickly with regard to the development and strengthening of a police that is trusted by the people. And in addition to there is another very important issue - the improved relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the political dialogue that has been established and also the jirga process that I hope can be underway very soon.
You know I have always said to those who talk about the military surge, what we need most of all is a political surge - more political energy. These are the elements that belong to that cluster which can give us more political energy. Let me also mention one thing that I forgot. We are working on the establishment of a single joint databank for the international assistance to move away from the situation where we have one smaller databank here and another there and a third and fourth in different places. So that we can, under the Ministry of Finance and under the Ministry of Economy know what is happening, have transparency and therefore be able to impose greater aid effectiveness. That is also an important issue that we are working on. But, these things take time. I want to assure you that all these processes are underway and I am confident that when you see the results that will also contribute to providing more of an optimistic mood than we see today among some. My main message is this: Stop the pessimistic grumbling and let's get on stubbornly with the agenda that we have in front of us.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
KILID [translated from Dari]: There are reports about peace talks with the Taliban supported by foreign countries. Are you aware of these talks and what is your position on them?
SRSG EIDE: I won't comment on the reports we have seen in the media. But I would like to make a general comment. I have always been in favour of a policy of engagement. I saw reports that a soldier said that we can not win this conflict militarily. We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means. And that means political engagement. Then comes a question - with whom do you engage? My general answer is that if you want to have relevant results you must speak to those who are relevant. If you want to have results that matter you must speak to those who matter. But these are processes that are very difficult to initiate. Nevertheless, in my view a policy of engagement is the right policy.
REUTERS: To touch on your last answer - are you pointing to remarks by Brigadier Carleton-Smith in Helmand a couple of days ago that the conflict cannot be won militarily and that there would be some level of insurgency even if the foreign military is gone? Is this the pessimism you are talking about or it is just realism?
SRSG: I don't think I want to make any comment on any specific statement over the last period of time. But my general comment is that if our perspective is only a military perspective - then it is a wrong perspective. We need a wider perspective, which includes the political dimension which is critical to every success.
TAMADUN TV [translated from Dari]: Tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of American forces in Afghanistan. While you are talking about pessimism, given the failure of the international community and the Government of Afghanistan and the scale of corruption, where do you think this country will end up?
SRSG: Let me first say that the international forces stayed in the Balkans for more than seven years. There is a continued need for international forces here. Where do I think Afghanistan will end up? Every country develops as a process, so it never ends. But what I believe is that we are all aware of what the challenges are, we are aware of the challenges related to security, corruption and the need to improve the police etc. I feel that the awareness is stronger today than it was half a year ago. That gives me a reason to believe that we can move forward. That is why I reject, even in spite of the negative aspects we have seen lately, I reject this atmosphere of pessimism, because I do believe that the commitment is there and stronger than it was half a year ago to make progress on these issues. Then you can judge me in half a year or a year from now - whether I was right or wrong, but I sense it quite strongly today.
ARIANA TV [translated from Dari]: Why do you think this pessimism is growing in Afghanistan? The international community has been with Afghan Government for seven years now, but still security is deteriorating, armed conflicts are increasing, and people do not have food to eat, what is the reason for this?
SRSG: You pointed to some of the reasons. As I said, nobody can underestimate the problems - insecurity, humanitarian affairs, corruption and you mentioned some others. I understand why people feel worried, but I do believe that there is commitment, and an increasing commitment from the Afghan Government.
I have regular discussions, as late as yesterday, and there is a strong commitment in the international community. And I had discussions last week and I will have more next week. We are determined to turn that around. Here I am not addressing the Afghan people, who I understand are worried. But I address those, particularly in the international community who have almost made it a hobby to be pessimistic, and to talk in terms of gloom and doom. I think that is incorrect and it is dangerous with regard to our ability to move forward, it is unfair vis-a-vis those of us who are committed to moving forward. I think these gloomy comments that we have more than every now and then - that they have simply gone too far - they make us blind to what we are doing and what we are achieving. We are not making gigantic steps forward - of course we are not. But I do see that we are building stone upon stone and something that will become, for instance a stronger Afghan institution.
I do not know if many of you were there a few weeks ago when we inaugurated the National Institute for Management and Administration (NIMA). It seems like a small thing, but it will be a cornerstone in the building of durable institutions in this country. These things are important and we must take proper note of it.
IRIN: Thank you. On the humanitarian agenda I would like you to elaborate. I am sorry for this pessimistic analysis, but most humanitarians have the opinion that the humanitarian space has already been squeezed and that there is no space at present in Afghanistan. What measures will you take to expand this space?
SRSG: I mentioned to you that both with regard to the polio vaccination programme and the distribution of food and everything that is related to it, access is of course of fundamental importance. And that is why I appeal to all those who are engaged, and I appeal to the Taliban, to share our humanitarian agenda. Because it is not the humanitarian agenda of the Government, it is not the humanitarian agenda of any particular country. It is the agenda of the Afghan people. All of us who want to support it, let's share this agenda and move forward and demonstrate that this is an agenda, in spite of all disagreements, an agenda that we can share. Let me add that in addition to this broader political issue, we are of course working with international NGO's in particular to see how we can help them improve their access situation. That is an ongoing discussion, it will continue in the future and it is an important discussion. And these NGOs carry out a tremendously important role and deserve praise by everybody for the role that they are undertaking.
SABAH TV [translated from Pashto]: As you said, this pessimism has created a gap between the Government and public. What approach should the international community take to decrease or remove this gap?
SRSG: What I am saying is that we must all have confidence in our political agenda. We must pursue that as vigorously as we can, demonstrate political strength and I believe if we do, you will see the results over the next few months.
I believe and hope that the confidence of the people will return. Not only the confidence of the people of Afghanistan but also those in donor countries who ask themselves important questions. My task is to play a leading role in stimulating that confidence and I certainly have a strong belief in the agenda we have in front of us and we agreed on in Paris. As I said, my conversations both with the President and international community over the last week have confirmed that I have reasons to have confidence.
I want to stubbornly pursue that agenda that any end to the conflict in Afghanistan must have political processes that respects the Constitution and respects the achievements we have made to the benefit of the Afghan people.
VOA: You mentioned three times about your meeting with President Karzai, was there something in particular you said or he said that gives you confidence that there will be a shift regarding all these problems that you elaborated on?
SRSG: I have a constant dialogue with the President, a dialogue that I appreciate very much and I don't discuss in public the contents of such conversations - but what I am saying is that the discussion that I had with him and key leaders in the international community confirmed to me that I have reasons to be confident on our ability to move forward.
Thank you all very much.