Opening Remarks by the NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen At the Monthly Press Conference Brussels, 1 October 2012 Good afternoon. Next week, NATO Defence ministers and our partners will meet here in Brussels. We will have two major items on our agenda. Firstly, our missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, and secondly, our Defence capabilities. On Afghanistan, our goal is to hand over full responsibility for security to the Afghans by the end of 2014. Our strategy is to build up the capacity of the Afghan security forces and gradually hand over to them lead responsibility for the security across the country. Soon we will have reached the goal of 352,000 Afghan security forces. And they are already taking lead responsibility in areas where 75% of the Afghan population live. Our timeline is to complete this transition by the end of 2014. At that time, our current ISAF combat mission will end. From 2015 it will be followed by a NATO-led mission to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces. The goal, the strategy and the timeline remain unchanged. And the commitment to the goal, the strategy and the timeline was reinforced in my meetings in New York last week - in particular during the transatlantic meeting of European and NATO Foreign Ministers. This commitment will be reaffirmed when Defence Ministers meet next week. We are going through a challenging period, not least due to the occurrence of insider attacks. We look at these attacks with the utmost concern. We are determined to tackle those challenges. And we are working with our Afghan partners to do so. The insurgents are trying to undermine our partnership and to drive a wedge between us. My message is very clear: we will not let them succeed. Because ISAF and the Afghan security forces face the same threats, and we have the same goal â a sovereign, stable and secure Afghanistan. Let me update you on the current situation. Right now, most ISAF units are conducting normal partnered operations. They are working with our Afghan partners and they are mentoring our Afghan partners. The Afghan forces are already taking responsibility for large areas of the country. And the initial results are promising. They show that the Afghan forces are indeed able to maintain security. In the areas where they took the lead last year, the situation has remained stable. In some areas, security has actually improved. For example, in the Regional Command for Kabul, which is already fully involved in the transition process, enemy-initiated attacks fell by 17% in the first eight months of this year. Also available in high definition
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