DUSHANBE, January 21, 2010, Asia-Plus — An international conference on Afghanistan will be held in London on 28 January 2010.
According to the U.K. Embassy in Dushanbe, the Conference will be co-hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It will be co-chaired by the UK and Afghan Foreign Ministers and the UN.
Foreign ministers from International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) partners, Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors and key regional players, representatives from NATO, the United Nations, the EU and other international organizations such as the World Bank are all invited to the conference.
The purpose of the conference is deliver and co-ordinate support to enable President Karzai to meet the ambitions he set out in his inauguration speech. Therefore, the London Conference will focus on three main issues: security; development and governance; and the regional framework/international architecture.
The London Conference will be followed by an international conference in Kabul later in the year in order to present the Afghan government’s commitments to the people of Afghanistan. There is then due be a further international conference in early 2011. This sequence of events will help the international community and Afghan government to strengthen Afghan leadership, improve security and build a better future for the Afghan people.
The UK’s overarching goal, shared by the international community, remains a stable and secure Afghanistan that can exercise its sovereignty over all of its territory, offer its people representative government and the conditions for economic prosperity and which plays a constructive role in the region on the basis of mutual non-interference. Building a stable and secure Afghanistan is a long-term task with many challenges, but the international community is determined to continue to support the Afghan government to see the task through.
