HEADQUARTERS PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR AFGHANISTAN

HEADQUARTERS PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR AFGHANISTAN

Acknowledging the difficulties that lay ahead in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for that country, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon that "we will do our best and work first with all Afghans, then those who have an interest in Afghanistan, concerns and influence over the situation". 

A correspondent asked the Special Representative if he saw any long-term involvement by the United Nations in Afghanistan in terms of “transition” and “nation-building” or other terms that were being thrown around?  Mr. Brahimi said the Organization was definitely not seeking anything of that sort. It had, however, been involved with Afghanistan for a long time and would continue to be involved. Within the scope of that involvement there were two principal objectives:  to provide aid and relief to the needy Afghans whose numbers were increasing both within and without the country; and try to help resolve the conflict and open the road for possible development.  

"We are also now preparing for post-conflict rehabilitation of Afghanistan", he said, "and we will continue to do that".  He reiterated that the United Nations was not seeking a transitional administration or peacekeeping or anything like that. "As we told the Security Council yesterday, we must be extremely careful about which way it wanted to go", he said.

Another correspondent wanted to know how prepared the Department of Peacekeeping Operations was for the possibility of a major role in Afghanistan, especially in light of the Brahimi report on peace operations and its implementation or lack thereof. The Special Representative said the Department of Peacekeeping Operations needed to be asked where they were at this time. He knew that they were in the process of implementing the recommendations contained in the report on the basis of the resources they had been given by Members. "I think they are rather encouraged by the response of Member States, but as to exactly where they are -- I do not know", he said.

A correspondent noted that there had been some talk about other, third-party nations hosting a political conference on Afghanistan. He asked Mr. Brahimi for his views on the issue of a country like Japan getting involved in the political process in Afghanistan.

"We definitely welcome the interest of Japan or any other country in helping the process along”, Mr. Brahimi responded. "We have been in close contact with Japan over the past few years because of their interest in Afghanistan. We will definitely look very positively at requests such as Japan's if and when we are in a position to organize such a political conference."

Responding to questions on whom he would see among Afghanistan's Pashtuns, Mr. Brahimi said that in the past years he had been in touch with all those who could be reached both inside and outside Afghanistan. Many of them had been Pashtuns. "Now, what we are trying to see is how the new situation is affecting the Afghan scene and what the new elements are", he said. At this stage, however, he could not say who the emerging Pashtun elements were.

A correspondent said that while everyone seemed to be saying that it was up to the United Nations to nation build, including President George W. Bush of the

United States and the European Union today, he wanted to know why Mr. Brahimi was saying no to that proposal.

The Special Representative said an administration role was something different. "I think the United Nations will welcome the possibility of helping the Afghan people reconstruct their country. And we will definitely be doing as much as we can", he said. That was a different thing from actually providing direct administration for the country. The process was going to be discussed with the Afghans to see how they wanted to reorganize themselves. "We also need to see what is going to happen on the ground", he added.

A correspondent noted that over the past few days it seemed to have emerged that Mr. Brahimi's personal preference was to secure Afghanistan and to have an Afghan-type security force. If that assumption was correct, she said, how realistic were the Special Representative’s expectations as compared with the idea of a multinational force with a heavy Muslim constituency? 

"We have to be very careful", Mr. Brahimi said. The United Nations had been asked to help in Afghanistan and it had been trying to do just that, albeit with very little success so far. "There is a new situation and hopefully, because of it, maybe we will be more successful", he said. “How are we going to do it? While our options are open we are not going to rush to find a solution”, he said.

A correspondent noted that the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had suggested that moderate members of the Taliban should be allowed in the broad-based coalition government that the United States was working to put together for Afghanistan. She asked the Special Representative if he saw a role for moderate members of the Taliban. Also, given the time constraints, how quickly did he think he could get Afghan forces together?  

Mr. Brahimi said he could only go as fast as the Afghans could go. As to who would be in or out, he did not know. "What I am saying is that we, the United Nations, have always been extremely careful not to exclude anybody. We realize that this is Afghanistan and that it belongs to the Afghans." That basic principle had not changed and would not change. "We will examine with the Afghans what is going to work for them, and once again we hope that the conditions that were not there before, which prevented us from helping the Afghans effectively, will change now and allow us to do so this time", he said. "As far as the Taliban are concerned I would like to remind you that we have never stopped talking to them." It had always been said -- including by the Taliban -- that they were ostracized. He did not know about other actors, but in the United Nations, "we have been running after the Taliban all the time and we have never passed judgement on anyone. We have worked with them as we did with everybody else", he said.

Noting that the Special Representative was meeting Richard Haas, Director of Policy Planning in the United States State Department and Special Envoy to Afghanistan, a correspondent wanted to know how the Special Representative planned to coordinate his work with Mr. Haas so that their missions did not interfere with each other.

Mr. Brahimi said Mr. Haas had asked to see the Secretary-General and was coming to Headquarters tomorrow. "We are looking forward to meeting him and we will take it from there." Mr. Brahimi informed correspondents that he himself was also going to Washington on Friday.

When asked whether he planned to work with Mr. Haas on a regular basis, the Special Representative said that as he had said earlier, he would be counting first on the Afghans; second on Afghanistan's neighbours, because they had interests, concerns and influence; and also on a few countries through the rest of the world, including the United States, which also had interests and concerns in Afghanistan.

A correspondent said the Special Representative had spoken about talking to the Afghan parties and noted that there was also talk of some new broad coalition around the former King of Afghanistan. She asked Mr. Brahimi to express his thoughts on where he saw this idea of a broader political coalition going, and how he was going to try and see what exactly worked.

The Special Representative said there was a renewed urgency among the Afghans themselves. The King and the Northern Alliance, for example, had gotten together, while others were also in touch with him. The Pakistani Government was now seeing the King's representatives and that was very interesting. All of that was happening, and he could not say at this stage what kind of system would be put in place.

A correspondent wanted to know how Mr. Brahimi envisaged the operation of humanitarian corridors. The Special Representative said that issue was the priority at the moment. A great deal of work was being done in that area. "We think that we need something like 2,000 tonnes of food to go in per day. I think at the moment we are managing just over 1,000 tonnes per day", he said. The problem was that the humanitarian emergency was both inside and outside Afghanistan.

The humanitarian operation, continued Mr. Brahimi, was very difficult and very complicated. "Whether we will organize corridors or not -- that I don't know at present", he said. "But we definitely think that we can ultimately manage in the three or four weeks before winter to get as much food together as possible to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan." The United Nations was appealing to all neighbouring countries to cooperate by allowing convoys to go and allowing refugees that arrive at the border to reach the convoys. That discussion was continuing with all of Afghanistan's neighbours.

A correspondent wanted to know how it could be guaranteed that the food, once in Afghanistan, would reach the people. Mr. Brahimi said that was another headache because of the secondary distribution aspect. "We have marvelous Afghan staff who have proved again and again how dedicated and efficient they are working under impossible conditions. I think we will be counting mainly on them to organize that. We will also see if and when it will be possible for at least some of the international staff to return to Afghanistan", he said.

Noting that while the United Nations was not seeking a peacekeeping or transitional role in Afghanistan, a correspondent drew attention to the fact that the Balkans had proved that the Organization had had such a role foisted upon it in the past. In that light, he questioned whether it would not be wise to start some contingency planning in the event that the Security Council decided that peacekeeping and transition were the role for the Organization.   

Mr. Brahimi said there were 10 years of experience between the Balkans and now. "I hope we have learned something from that experience", he said. In addition, his report had sought to learn from those lessons. Ultimately, while it was the Security Council that took decisions, they were going to make certain that the members had all the facts in front of them. "The Secretary-General must give the Council what they need to know and not what they want to hear", he said.

Responding to a question on the Taliban request for dialogue with the United Nations, he said that never once since the Taliban's appearance on the scene had any request by them to talk to the United Nations ever been refused. "The opposite has been the case from time to time –- from time to time the United Nations has wanted to talk to them and they were not ready to talk to us", he said. During the two years that he had been involved directly with Afghanistan, he had seen the Taliban at all levels and he was sure that now they must remember a few of the things that he told them.

A correspondent wanted to know why the Special Representative did not want the United Nations to rush in with “blue helmets” in Afghanistan. Mr. Brahimi said what was being recommended was that the United Nations should never rush into sending a peacekeeping operation. Last year's report said that the Organization could not go everywhere, and that it must select the locales it went to with care. Afghanistan was complicated and difficult, and one could not hastily get people together and send them there. 

"I would like to know which countries are rushing forward to offer troops to mount an operation in Afghanistan", said Mr. Brahimi. Afghans were a very proud people who did not like being ordered around by foreigners, especially those in military uniforms. That was a fact that had to be taken into account. He also did not know whether the idea of a United Nations force headed by Muslims was more acceptable. Those were things that would have to be looked at with great care.

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