Taliban plan
January 24, 2010
Guido Westerwelle, Germany's foreign minister, has said he wants Taliban fighters in Afghanistan to be offered a financial incentive to stop fighting.
Germany is the third largest supplier of troops in the country, with some 4,500 currently deployed there. Westerwelle, who will attend an international conference on Afghanistan later this week, said he believed many members of the Taliban were fighting for financial reasons.
"There are many hangers-on with the Taliban terrorists who do not share their fanatical beliefs but who, for economic reasons, are on the wrong path," he told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
"They need to be offered an economic and social way out for themselves and their families. We will provide additional funds for that," he said on Sunday.
New approach predicted
Westerwelle predicted a "completely new approach to reintegrating insurgents into society" at the talks, which will take place in London. Increases in troop numbers will be on the agenda at the conference.
The foreign minister said he was not against an increase in numbers, but that he also wanted a change in strategy. Westerwelle, leader of junior government coalition partners the Free Democrats, has been vocal in calls for a new approach to Afghanistan.
Little time for debate
However, the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said there would be little time for debate at the conference.
He told German weekly Der Spiegel that the "strategy for Afghanistan is settled" and that the conference in London was merely to implement it.
Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he wanted to put forward "a concrete number for a possible increase of the German troop contingent" before the conference.
rc/AFP/apn
Editor: Andrew Bowen