Russia's foreign minister sharply criticized NATO's plan to withdraw
its forces from Afghanistan by 2014, saying Thursday that coalition
troops should remain in the country until Afghan government forces are
capable of ensuring security.
"As long as Afghanistan is not able
to ensure by itself the security in the country, the artificial
timelines of withdrawal are not correct and they should not be set,"
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
NATO plans to hand over lead
responsibility for the war against the Taliban to the Afghan army and
police by the middle of next year, and to withdraw its troops by the
end of 2014. It has already started drawing down its forces, which
reached a peak of about 140,000 last year.
NATO leaders say that
Afghan forces are improving rapidly and will be able to counter Taliban
guerrillas after 2014. But critics have pointed to widespread drug use
and the high desertion rate among government forces as signs that it
remains unprepared to handle the insurgents.
NATO
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen responded to Lavrov's criticism
saying the withdrawal schedule had been agreed with the government in
Kabul, and that it was "definitely not artificial." He also urged
Russia, China and other non-NATO countries to help fund the post-2014
Afghan armed forces.
The Afghan army and police are scheduled to
expand to over 350,000 members in the next several months. NATO has
already handed over to them responsibility for security over half of
the country's population, and the transition is set to continue.
Lavrov,
who attended a meeting of NATO defense and foreign ministers in
Brussels, said China and other countries in Asia were also worried
about the withdrawal schedule.
Moscow views NATO's military
effort in Afghanistan as crucial for its own security, including
helping to prevent instability from spreading into ex-Soviet Central
Asia.
Russia has provided NATO with air corridors and railway
routes for carrying supplies to and from landlocked Afghanistan. The
link has become particularly important since Pakistan blocked NATO
supplies from crossing its territory following an alliance airstrike
that killed 24 Pakistani border troops in November.
On Thursday,
Lavrov and NATO ministers discussed a plan to give the alliance a new
logistics facility on Russian territory to transfer military cargo to
and from Afghanistan.
The proposal now being considered by
Russian lawmakers would for the first time allow alliance members to
set up a logistics facility in Ulyanovsk, Russia, for troops and cargo.
Officials said there were "no differences" between the two sides on the use of the air base in Ulyanovsk.
"We
expect to expand the transit options offered to us by Russia ... to
Afghanistan," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after
the meeting. "We appreciate very highly Russia's contribution, which is
based on our shared interests and contributes to our shared security."
The
former Cold War rivals remain sharply at odds, however, over a U.S.-led
NATO missile defense plan in Europe that Washington says is aimed at
deflecting a potential Iranian threat. Moscow fears it will eventually
become powerful enough to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent.
Despite
those differences, Russia has also cooperated with the alliance in
suppressing piracy off the Somali coastline and in such areas as
anti-terrorism, counter-narcotics and search-and-rescues at sea.