Rudd supporting Afghanistan summit

29 Nov 2009, 10:15 am   -   Source: AAP
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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is backing the announcement of a summit to be held in London in January to discuss Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is backing the announcement of a summit to be held in London in January to discuss Afghanistan.

Australia, the US, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and all other major contributors to the coalition fighting in Afghanistan will be invited.

Ban and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the summit on Saturday at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago.

"What we need is a political push to match the military push we're now agreeing to," Brown told reporters.

"And that means that President Karzai has got to accept that there will be milestones by which he's going to be judged and he's got to accept that there will be benchmarks which the international community will set."

Rudd discussed the summit during a meeting on Saturday with Ban at CHOGM.

"They discussed Afghanistan," Rudd's spokesman said.

"The prime minister welcomed the proposal for a conference on Afghanistan, which the secretary-general had announced earlier in the day.

"The prime minister briefed the secretary-general on his recent visit to Afghanistan."

Rudd attended a news conference at CHOGM on Saturday with Ban, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning to announce a climate change declaration that the 53 member nations agreed to.

When a reporter tried to ask Rudd about Afghanistan and a possible increase of Australian troop levels, the journalist was told the news conference was to discuss climate change.

Rudd will visit US President Barack Obama on Monday in Washington DC.

A day later, Obama is expected to announce a new strategy on Afghanistan and to order the deployment of more than 30,000 extra US troops to the conflict.

Britain is planning to withdraw its 25,000 personnel from Afghanistan and Brown said the January 28 summit will draw up clear benchmarks for the pullout.

Brown said Afghan forces would be built up by nearly 50,000 over the next year.

Brown also called for 5,000 more troops from other countries outside of Britain and the US to be deployed with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

Australia has about 1550 troops in Afghanistan but is under almost constant pressure to add to that number.

During a visit to the war zone earlier this month, Rudd reiterated Australia's commitment to remain in Afghanistan for "the long haul".

The government has said it is not considering increasing troop numbers to Afghanistan.

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