The Hungarian Provincial Reconstruction Team (HUN PRT) has started withdrawing from Afghanistan; the development projects will be terminated and certain pieces of military equipment will be moved back home – Col. Antal Sipos, the commander of the last PRT told the special correspondent of Hungarian News Agency MTI in Camp Pannonia, the base of the HUN PRT on Wednesday, December 5.

Preparations are already under way for the withdrawal that is expected to take place next spring. The PRT will transport home those items of equipment whose movement does not place heavy financial burdens on the Hungarian Defence Forces, and the weapons and combat vehicles must be transported back to Hungary because their transfer to another party is forbidden by international law, the colonel added. For example, those vehicles that the Hungarian Defence Forces received from the United States will be returned to their original owners.

“We are supposed to leave this camp here in an operable condition, so we won’t pull it down”, he stated, adding that the compound is to be handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), but it is still pending whether it will go to the Afghan National Police (ANP) or to the Afghan National Army (ANA).

Antal Sipos told MTI that he had deployed to Afghanistan for the first time with the PRT-6 contingent in 2006. Since then, a lot of things have changed in Pol-e Khomri and its environs: the rural areas have developed, and the management of the local public administration has clearly become more independent. The local security forces have been organized over the last few years, so today Afghans are responsible for maintaining law and order in six districts of Baghlan Province, he added. The reason why the security situation is temporarily deteriorating in the country – including the northern province – is precisely that the NATO forces are withdrawing, and the ANA and the ANP have as not yet achieved all the required standards. For six years now, the HUN PRT has been assisting the population, developing local infrastructure, building workplaces and schools, he said. “We have won the local people’s hearts and minds because our troops have understood that we are being deployed here in a foreign environment where we are guests; and as a rule, it is the guests that should adapt themselves to their environment” – stressed the Colonel.

The commander of the last PRT said it was a success that – partly thanks to the Hungarians – an excellent relationship had been established between the local Afghan leaders and the ISAF Regional Command North (ISAF RC-N). “They are now making joint plans and maintaining real contact. The meetings between the government, the ANSF and the ISAF are not mere formalities as they are discussing real issues”, he stated.

A remaining task, now to be passed on to the Afghans, is the training and retention of their own personnel. For the time being, selection presents them with a challenge because unreliable persons may be admitted to the armed forces, and corruption is a big problem too, the senior officer said.

(MTI)