Agence France-Presse,
Doha (AFP): French Defence Minister Herve Morin urged Afghan leaders to play a greater role in restoring security in their country, during a visit to Afghanistan.
“Would it be conceivable that in the course of 2008 you will be able to take full charge of one province?” he asked during a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday.
This would “eventually” limit the role of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to providing air support and training and overseeing Afghan soldiers fighting Taliban rebels, said Morin, who flew on to Doha on Sunday.
Morin also put the suggestion to ISAF's commander, US General Dan McNeill.
The force still comprises some 36,000 men from 37 countries, deployed alongside around 15,000 soldiers in a US-led coalition, almost six years after the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom that toppled the Taliban.
Morin stressed that Afghans must “gradually take their fate into their own hands” during a visit on Friday to French instructors training Afghan soldiers at a base in Maiwan, some 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of Kabul.
Officially, the Afghan army currently has 37,000 men, a number projected to nearly double to 70,000 in 2008.
France plans to expand its training team from the current 50 to 200 by December.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy summed up France's priorities in Afghanistan in an August 27 speech as helping to train the Afghan army, rebuild the country and combat drugs.
Afghanistan remains gripped by violence amid a guerrilla-like insurgency by the Taliban movement that was toppled in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
Karzai, who has survived two assassination attempts, cut short a speech to thousands of people in Kabul on Sunday after what one official said was a commotion outside the venue caused by thousands of people trying to enter.
