U.S. gives ally Afghanistan special security status

Sat, Jul 07 02:08 AM EDT 1 of 2 By Arshad Mohammed KABUL (Reuters) - Washington declared Afghanistan a major non-NATO ally on Saturday, a largely symbolic status reinforcing its message to Afghans that they will not be abandoned as the war winds down. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the decision, made by President Barack Obama, during her unannounced visit to Kabul where she met President Hamid Karzai on the eve of a major donors' conference in Tokyo which will draw pledges for aid. The status upgrade may help Afghanistan acquire U.S. defense supplies and have greater access to U.S. training as the Afghan army takes more responsibility for the country's security ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of most NATO combat troops. "Please know that the United States will be your friend and your partner. We are not even imagining abandoning Afghanistan. Quite the opposite," Clinton told a press briefing with Karzai before jetting off to Tokyo. Obama's decision meets a pledge he made on a visit to Afghanistan this year to upgrade Kabul to a special security status given to only a limited number of U.S. partners -- including close allies like Israel and Japan -- which are not members of NATO. Participants at the Tokyo meeting are expected to commit just under $4 billion annually in development aid for Afghanistan at Sunday's meeting, though the central bank has said the country needs at least $6 billion a year to foster economic growth over the next decade. This is on top of the $4.1 billion committed annually by NATO and its partners for Afghanistan's security forces, pledged at a Chicago summit in May. U.S. officials with Clinton declined to say how much aid the United States would pledge, which has significantly reduced aid since the peak year of 2010 when more than $6 billion was given, two thirds from Washington. DONOR FATIGUE, WAR WEARINESS Now, donor fatigue and war weariness are taking their toll on how long the global community is willing to support Afghanistan, and there are fears that without financial backing, the country could slip back into chaos when foreign troops withdraw. U.S. officials acknowledged that the trend lines for donating development aid were heading down. Major donors and aid organizations have warned that weak political will and graft could prevent funds reaching the right people at a critical time, when fragile gains in health and education could be lost if funding does not continue. Assuaging those fears, Clinton said: "We are well aware of (corruption) but this is an issue that the government and people of Afghanistan want action on." For Afghanistan to one day stand on its own two feet, donors hope Sunday's Tokyo conference will win guarantees from Kabul to tackle graft and ensure accountability. Transparency International ranks Afghanistan as one of the world's most corrupt nations and despite Karzai's recent campaign to tackle graft within government, a high-level corruption case is yet to be prosecuted. There is also growing fear among ordinary Afghans that the vacuum of cash could lead to greater insecurity. Comparisons are frequently being drawn to the Soviets' 1989 humiliating defeat after a decade of fighting mujahideen insurgents. When Moscow stopped giving aid a year after the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1992, civil war engulfed the country. U.S. officials may be reluctant to cite a specific pledge because the sum actually given is ultimately controlled by Congress, which holds the U.S. government's purse strings. Enthusiasm for foreign aid has generally waned in Congress because of massive U.S. budget deficits. (Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Jeremy Laurence) === U.S., Pakistan ties still raise tough questions: Clinton Sun, Jul 08 03:33 AM EDT By Arshad Mohammed TOKYO (Reuters) - The U.S.-Pakistani relationship remains challenging for both despite the reopening of Pakistani land routes to resupply U.S. troops in Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday. Clinton last week apologized for a November NATO air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and Islamabad responded by reopening the overland supply routes that are crucial to the U.S-led war in Afghanistan. The supply route deal removed one headache, but ties are likely to remain strained by other differences. These include Pakistan's opposition to U.S. drone strikes aimed at militants on its territory and Washington's allegations that Islamabad condones, or even assists, anti-American militants. Speaking after she met Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Clinton said both were encouraged they had "put the recent difficulties behind us" but she acknowledged the difficulties in the relationship in blunt terms. "I have said many times that this is a challenging but essential relationship. It remains so. And I have no reason to believe it will not continue to raise hard questions for us both," Clinton told a news conference in Tokyo, where both officials attended an Afghan donors conference. "But it is something that I think is in the interests of the United States as well as in the interests of Pakistan." Clinton said that the top issue she discussed with Khar was "the necessity of defeating the terror networks that threaten the stability of both Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as interests of the United States" and its allies. The United States has pressed Pakistan to pursue the Taliban and its allies, especially the Haqqani network, which it blames for a series of attacks on U.S. targets in Afghanistan. Pakistan chafes at U.S. drone strikes inside Pakistan and has long complained that the United States has overlooked its contribution to the fight against militants - scores of al Qaeda fighters were apprehended in Pakistan with American help - and the threat Pakistanis themselves face. U.S. officials regarded the supply routes as particularly important as the United States and its NATO partners plan to withdraw the bulk of the 128,000 soldiers they have deployed in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Clinton delivered the U.S. apology, long sought by Pakistan, in a telephone conversation with Khar this week. The two pledged to improve relations, which took a nosedive after U.S. forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year. After their bilateral talks, Clinton and Khar both met Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasul, laughing as they staged a three-way handshake for photographers. The three issued a statement that emphasized their desire for reconciliation between Taliban militants and the Afghan government. The United States wants Pakistan to bring the Haqqani network into peace talks, but is wary of exerting too much pressure on Pakistan and further straining ties. (Editing by Ron Popeski) ========= Seven NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan Sun, Jul 08 15:10 PM EDT KABUL (Reuters) - Six NATO soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, after an insurgent attack in the south killed one foreign soldier, coalition statements said. The deaths take the number of NATO troops killed in the last two days to eight, one of the deadliest periods of violence for foreign troops in weeks. A string of roadside bombs and clashes in the south killed at least 24 Afghan civilians and police earlier on Sunday. (Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman, editing by Tim Pearce) Donors offer $16 billion Afghan aid at Tokyo conference Sun, Jul 08 10:26 AM EDT 1 of 6 By Arshad Mohammed and Kiyoshi Takenaka TOKYO (Reuters) - Major donors pledged on Sunday to give Afghanistan $16 billion in development aid through 2015 as they try to prevent it from sliding back into chaos when foreign troops leave, but demanded reforms to fight widespread corruption. Donor fatigue and war weariness have taken their toll on how long the global community is willing to support Afghanistan and there are concerns about security following the withdrawal of most NATO troops in 2014 if financial backing is not secured. "Afghanistan's security cannot only be measured by the absence of war," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an international donors' conference in Tokyo. "It has to be measured by whether people have jobs and economic opportunity, whether they believe their government is serving their needs, whether political reconciliation proceeds and succeeds." The roughly $4 billion in annual aid pledged at the meeting, attended by 80 countries and international organizations, fell short of the $6 billion a year the Afghan central bank has said will be needed to foster economic growth over the next decade. Clinton and other donors stressed the importance of Afghanistan - one of the most corrupt nations in the world - taking aggressive action to fight graft and promote reforms. "We have agreed that we need a different kind of long-term economic partnership, one built on Afghan progress in meeting its goals, in fighting corruption, in carrying out reform, and providing good governance," Clinton said. According to "mutual accountability" provisions in the final conference documents, as much as 20 percent of the aid could ultimately depend on Afghanistan meeting benchmarks on fighting corruption and other good governance measures. However, a Japanese official said that it was up to each donor whether to make its aid contingent on such reforms and that the benchmarks could vary from country to country. World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the pressure was on the Afghan government to deliver reforms and ensure fair elections in 2014 in order to secure aid beyond the amount pledged in Tokyo. "This is a fragile conflict state," Indrawati told Reuters in an interview. "Three years is a very short time for a country to be able to build stable and competent institutions." NEED TO DO MORE International donors provided $35 billion in aid to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2010, but the return on that investment has been mixed and the country remains one of the five poorest in the world. President Hamid Karzai admits his government needs to do more to tackle corruption, but his critics say he is not doing enough, and some directly blame authorities for vast amounts of aid not reaching the right people. While strides have been made in schooling children and improving access to health care, three-quarters of the 30 million Afghans are illiterate and the average person earns only about $530 a year, according to the World Bank. The government has identified priority areas for economic development, including investment in agriculture and mining, which Western officials see as a possible engine for growth. Afghanistan is believed to have up to a trillion dollars' worth of untapped mineral wealth. Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said the Tokyo conference had shown aid donors were committed to the long haul. "Today's event sends the strongest message to Afghan people that the international community will be with us in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020 and beyond," Zakhilwal told a news conference. U.S. officials gave no figure for their aid pledge but said the administration would ask Congress to keep assistance through 2017 "at or near" what it has given over the past decade. Annual U.S. aid to Afghanistan has ranged from about $1 billion a decade ago to a peak of about $4 billion in 2010. It stands at about $2.3 billion this year. Japan pledged $3 billion in aid for Afghanistan through 2016. Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said $2.2 billion of that amount would be grants for development projects in areas like investment in roads and infrastructure. The EU has said it will continue with pledges of 1.2 billion euros a year, but warned that if progress is not made with rule of law and women's rights, this could be difficult to continue. The pledges made in Tokyo are on top of the $4.1 billion by NATO and its partners for supporting the Afghan security forces. (Additional reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman in Kabul and Stanley White in Tokyo; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)