London talks to bring troops home

Tue Nov 17 2009 06:17:03

International talks in London could be used to set a "clear timetable" for the handover of power in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown suggested on Monday.

The Prime Minister outlined plans for a summit in the capital in January as he delivered the latest in a series of vigorous defences of the UK's military involvement in the country.

He used his annual Guildhall foreign policy speech to say the security chiefs believed there was an opportunity to inflict "significant and long-lasting damage to al-Qaeda".

The speech, at the Lord Mayor's banquet, was the latest stage in a drive to shore up public support for the war amid opinion polls showing strong support for UK troops to be withdrawn.

He said: "I want that conference to chart a comprehensive political framework within which the military strategy can be accomplished.

"It should identify a process for transferring, district by district, to full Afghan control and, if at all possible, set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010.

"For it is only when the Afghans are themselves able to defend the security of their people and deny the territory of Afghanistan as a base for terrorists that our strategy of Afghanisation will have succeeded and our troops can come home."

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