The new NATO-led international mission in Afghanistan will have the name “Resolute Support”, and will be established to train, advise and assist the security forces of the Central Asian country after the 2014 withdrawal of ISAF combat troops.

The announcement was made by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at a press conference following the two-day conference of NATO Ministers of Defence in Brussels on Wednesday, June 5. He said that the troop numbers for this mission are yet to be determined, but the Ministers have endorsed the detailed concept of the mission that is going to be finalized in the course of the coming months. It has already been decided that the mission will be based on five locations in Afghanistan – in Kabul, and in the regions to the North, East, South and the West of the capital. The force protection tasks for the mission will be carried out in close cooperation with the Afghan authorities, Mr. Rasmussen said.

At the two-day meeting Hungary was represented by Tamás Vargha, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence. He told Hungarian news agency MTI that at the meeting on Wednesday, conducted with the participation of representatives from non-NATO contributors to ISAF, it was declared that NATO will keep to the withdrawal schedule and will announce in some weeks the next, fifth tranche of the gradual security transition from ISAF to the Afghan forces. At the meeting, the Afghan Minister of Defence gave a pledge that the Afghan presidential elections to be held next spring would be fair and transparent.

Tamás Vargha told MTI that he reasserted at the meeting that Hungary is ready to participate in supporting a post-2014 Afghanistan, noting that the Hungarian Provincial Reconstruction Team has already completed its mission and returned home.

The Brussels meeting of the NATO Ministers of Defence included a meeting with the Georgian Minister of Defence as well. Speaking about this, the Hungarian State Secretary told MTI that the Georgian side reasserted its commitment to continue preparing for NATO membership and advancing on the road of democracy, whereas NATO reaffirmed its openness to admit Georgia as a member as soon as it fulfils the membership criteria. The North Atlantic Alliance would see as evidence of democracy in Georgia the period lasting until this autumn, which is characterized by a “co-tenancy” between the government and the head of state with different party lines and the presidential election which is due this October.

Speaking at the press conference at the close of the meeting, answering a question from the press about the former head of government Ivane Merabisvili’s arrest, he stressed that NATO is looking to Georgia to respect the rule of law. Answering another question from the press, he said it was unacceptable for Russian forces to put up a barbed-wire fence on the border of Georgia’s breakaway province South Ossetia, as this act violates international law and the agreement closing the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. The NATO Secretary General urged Moscow “to live up to its international obligations”. He also stressed that the North Atlantic Alliance continues to stand by the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within the internationally recognized borders of the country.

(MTI)