Afghan government to get more control over aid money (Extra)

Jul 20, 2010, 12:43 GMT

Kabul - The international conference on Afghanistan ended Tuesday with around 70 international representatives agreeing to give more control over aid money to the government.

Afghan Minister of Finance Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal said the participants, including 40 foreign ministers, agreed to channel 50 per cent of nearly 13 billion dollars pledged through the government over the next two years.

President Hamid Karzai also said that his country's troops 'will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014.'

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the one-day conference that the international forces would remain to support Afghan troops even after the security responsibility is handed over.

'We have not come this far, at this cost, to falter just as we see our common goal take shape,' he said.

The delegates also approved Karzai's plan to offer money to insurgents to lay down their weapons.

'What we have achieved is of tremendous importance,' UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who co-chaired the conference with Karzai, said in his closing statement.

'Never before have we had a more concrete vision of Afghanistan's future,' Ban said.