 BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Unions envoy to Afghanistan on Tuesday acknowledged that the 160-strong police-training mission the EU launches next month falls well short of his initial hopes and barely exceeds the minimum needed for the task. 'I think that the EU has decided to play as big a role as possible, unfortunately not as big as I would have liked, EU Special Representative Francesc Vendrell told a news conference.
| Just wait til you try to get the French and Belgians to do their share ... |
He said the small scale of the mission was due to the EU commitment to send up to 1,600 police officers to Kosovo _ if an agreement is found on the future of the breakaway Serbian province. 'I would have liked it (the Afghan mission) to be as large as the one going to Kosovo. That, of course, was unrealistic and unachievable, he said.
| They don't have enough police and military police trainers in all of the EU? Continent of 400 million people? 26 countries each with a military? Reeeeally? |
The launch of the mission follows calls from NATO for a greater international effort to train Afghan security forces that can back up the 36,000 NATO-led international troops patrolling the country. It is scheduled to start June 17 with around 110 officers, then be expanded to at least 160 later this year.
'I said that the mission should not be established unless it had 160 police, Vendrell said. We have reached that number and in fact probably surpassed it and so I think we can play a very honorable role. He said the EU mission would work closely with a separate US police training mission comprising 500 experts.
| So once again Uncle Sugar is carrying the larger share of the load. |
The commander of the EU mission, Brig. Gen. Friedrich Eichele of the German police, said the EU would offer advice and mentoring to Afghan authorities, as well as direct training to police officers. Several non-EU nations, including Norway and Canada, are expected to join the mission which is has a three-year mandate and a first-year budget of Ð43.6 million (US$58.9 million). |