Brussels, 19/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The President of the EU Council and Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Louis Michel, will be in Kabul on Saturday to help set up the provisional Afghanistan government. He will be speaking at a donor meeting on Friday in Brussels. The new Afghan vice Prime Minister and Afghan Finance Minister will participate at the meeting, which will begin this Thursday, see details in EUROPE 18 December page 14).
In New York, people were hoping for the Security Council to vote on a resolution authorising the deployment of a special international force to Kabul. One of the difficulties resulting from the fact that Germany wants the resolution to set out a clearly defined mandate, whereas the United Kingdom wants it to be more general. A commitment will be made on a six-month renewable period spent there by the force (requested by the United Kingdom). The President of the SPD group at the Bundestag, Peter Stuck, indicated on Wednesday on television that there were "differences" on the subject of a command structure for the future force (the British have indicated that they would be ready to lead, whereas Mr Stuck confirmed that Germany was already playing a leading role in Macedonia and didn't wish to in this case). The dozen countries intending to contribute troops to this new force met up again in London on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the future Afghan government accepted the deployment of an international force of 3,000 men, for a period of six months, which will have a limited mandate.