Afghanistan needs reconciliation and conscription, Karzai says

Feb 7, 2010, 11:52 GMT

Munich - Afghanistan needs strong international backing for a plan to woo former militants and their leaders back into civil life, and it should consider re-introducing conscription, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Ten days ago, top Afghan and world officials meeting in London agreed a new civilian and military strategy for the country which included boosting reconciliation efforts and building up the Afghan army, but questions remain over how exactly it should be done.

'The environment demands us to engage in some form of meaningful integrated reconciliation and reintegration activity, fully understood in agreement with and backed by our international partners ... We did not have full understanding in the past,' Karzai told the annual Munich Security Conference of world defence policymakers.

The London conference agreed to launch a reconciliation fund designed to woo militants back into civil life. So far, Japan, Germany, Australia and Spain have contributed, but the fund only has a quarter of the hoped-for 500 million dollars.

'We would like to see our allies in the US and Europe backing this, and we are happy to see the Japanese government backing our reconciliation effort,' Karzai said.

The London meeting also backed a decision to boost the Afghan army and police force to 305,000 men by October 2011. So far, international efforts have focused on creating a professional army.

But Karzai said that he had had many calls to reintroduce conscription.

'For the past many years I've been visited by Afghan community leaders who advise me to go back to some form of conscription for the Afghan army ... This will be philosophically one of our pursuits as we move ahead to the future, in consultation with the Afghan people,' he said.

That would allow 'the young boys from the Afghan countryside, like before, (to) come to training centres, get acquainted with the rest of the country, get familiarized with our regions of the country and learn something and go back home,' he said.