Chirac seeks Afghan Nato role for Iran

The Financial Times reports today that "France will on Tuesday propose that Iran be invited to join a "contact group" of countries and multilateral institutions to co-ordinate Nato's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan."  US officials gave a "guarded response," but this must have some folks in Washington apoplectic...

Chirac seeks Afghan Nato role for Iran
(Financial Times) By Martin Arnold in Paris, Daniel Dombey in Riga and Rachel, Morarjee in Kabul Nov 28:  France will on Tuesday propose that Iran be invited to join a "contact group" of countries and multilateral institutions to co-ordinate Nato's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. The proposal by Jacques Chirac, French president, may irritate the US at a two-day Nato summit in the Latvian capital of Riga, not least because of Washington's suspicions of Iran's nuclear programme. A senior French official also said that, if emergencies arose, France would relax restrictions on the movements of its troops in Afghanistan.

The position is in line with that of Germany, though it falls far short of meeting Nato's call for more troops or a dramatic wholesale elimination of restrictions or "caveats". Mr Chirac sets out his proposals in an article published by a range of foreign newspapers this morning, calling for "a global strategy, a reinforced political and economic process" to address Nato's difficulties in Afghanistan.

He says: "The establishment of a contact group to bring together the countries of the region, the main nations involved, and the international organisations, as exists already in Kosovo, seems necessary to give our forces all the means to succeed in their mission of supporting the Afghan authorities and to refocus the alliance on running military operations."

Yesterday, the US gave a guarded response to the idea of a contact group. "The idea of strengthening international co-ordination is a good idea," said one official, while cautioning that any such move had to be in keeping with efforts to strengthen the Afghan government.

Proposals for greater contacts with Iran are particularly hard for the US to respond to at the moment, since Washington's own policy on Tehran is in flux, pending the results of the US's Iraq Study Group.

But some Nato officials have already argued that a contact group would be an effective way of both forging international strategy on Afghanistan and committing other countries and institutions to the success of the government of President Hamid Karzai.

In July, Nato helped set up a more limited Policy Action Group for Afghanistan, which brings together the country's government, Nato troop contributors and aid donors to work on strategy in dealing with the insurgency in the country's south.

To date, France, Germany and other European members of Nato have resisted calls by alliance officials to move their troops to the volatile south of the country. But the French official said that at the summit, Mr Chirac would announce a loosening of France's national caveat that limits its troops to their zone around the Afghan capital of Kabul. In future, the official said French troops could be deployed elsewhere when needed to help their Nato allies...