Bad idea

[RAENORTH]

" ... in a move designed to address public fears that allied troops could become bogged down in Afghanistan for years to come," reports The Daily Telegraph (and others), Gordon Brown has announced that he plans to hold a summit for the Nato allies to discuss a timetable for withdrawal starting in 2010. He is to offer London as a venue in January and wants the 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 set a timetable for transfer starting in 2010," he has said.

View full article here

[Bluehaven]

And I suspect the US State Department is not on the same page either.

Typical Brown, grandstanding and rhetoric

[therewaslight]

The Afghan government was then asking the US to mediate in resolving the border dispute, something which the State Department was reluctant to do, claiming it did not have the expertise or the desire to intervene. "We are not there to re-write the history," a senior US official said.

this link links to the wrong source!

Edit: Agree with the post. Good old fashioned peace conference is what is needed. Plus some big new ideas to reshape the region. They have the choice to bite the bullet or collectively take it.

Don't forget China and probably also Russia should be involved. China has a military presence in Kashmir and is a diplomatic counterweight to India... China could support a more neutral Pashtuni government.

[RAENORTH]

this link links to the wrong source!

Thanks ... fixed

http://www.dawn.com/2003/08/29/top5.htm

[therewaslight]

Very interesting article.

The Afghans are now asking the United States to renegotiate the border and some Afghan officials have already issued a new map that shows such major Pakistani cities as Peshawar and Quetta in Afghanistan.

Do you think we might possibly be able to guess what this map looks like?

An "Afghanistan" certainly should not have this land - not least because the Indians influence the Kabul government, according to this article, through its "Northern Alliance" (presumably Tajik) ties.

However a Kandahar lead, Chinese supported, Pashtunistan which is part of a United Asian State with Balochistan, Sind and Punjab could certainly have it.