Stockholm: Sweden aims to pull its combat troops out of Afghanistan between 2012 and 2014 and will maintain a largely civilian support presence after that, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Monday.
“Our ambition is that Sweden’s presence in Afghanistan should shift from a combative role to a more supportive role,” he told reporters in Stockholm.
“This change to a completely supportive role should be in place by 2014 at the latest.
“We have to take developments on the ground in Afghanistan into account but our aim is clear,” he said, adding that the country would need support “far beyond 2014.”
Speaking at a joint press conference with leaders of the two main leftwing opposition parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, Reinfeldt presented a nine-point plan for the pull-out.
“Our aim is that during 2012 we will see concrete results of the process of transferring responsibility for security (to the Afghans) and that this will make it possible to reduce the number of (Swedish) combat troops,” the proposal read.
Sweden will maintain its current number of some 500 soldiers in Afghanistan through 2011, it said, without specifying troop numbers after that.
Even after 2014, some military personnel will likely remain to, among other things, help train Afghan troops, Green Party co-chair Peter Eriksson said.
Reinfeldt’s centre-right government, which has ruled as a minority since September 19 elections, needs opposition support for the bill as the far-right Sweden Democrats have said they oppose continued a Swedish troop presence in Afghanistan.
The Social Democrats and Greens, in a since dissolved coalition with the formerly communist Left Party, also campaigned ahead of the elections on demanding a withdrawal of the Swedish troops in Afghanistan.
However, the Sweden Democrats’ emergence as kingmaker in a hung parliament prompted the two leftwing parties to shift their position.
On Monday, Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin insisted the question of when to withdraw Swedish troops was “too important to leave up to an uncertain situation in parliament … that would not be worthy of the issue.”
“This is not so much a compromise as a new strategy,” she said.
The Left Party meanwhile announced early Monday it was pulling out of the negotiations, maintaining its position that the troops should be withdrawn immediately.
The government
currently has a parliamentary mandate to keep the troops in Afghanistan until January 1, 2011.
The new strategy will be presented to the house on Thursday and a final vote is expected in mid-December.
Sweden is officially neutral and not a member of NATO and the question of how long its troops should take part in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is a sensitive one.
Last month, a Swedish soldier was killed — the fifth since the troops were deployed in Afghanistan in early 2002 — and several were injured.
Days later, a poll showed nearly half of Swedes want the troops brought home.
